The NSW Government is working to increase confidence in our building and construction industry. We asked your views on changes that will improve building design, construction and fire safety. You gave 331 pieces of feedback through surveys, submissions, questions and a quick poll.

Quality designs and accountability for more buildings

We have implemented reforms through the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (DPB Act) and the Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Act 2020 (RAB Act) that have been improving confidence in residential apartment buildings.

From Monday, 3 July 2023 the regulation of class 2 buildings under the DBP Act was extended to new class 3 and 9c buildings, for example, residential care and aged care facilities, boarding houses, hostels and backpacker’s accommodation.

Key changes included:

• Design practitioners, building practitioners or professional engineers are required to be registered with NSW Fair Trading to continue to work on class 3 and 9c buildings.

• Practitioners’ obligations to work on these buildings is regulated under two laws, the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 and Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Act 2020.

• Registered practitioners are required to make declarations related to the design and building work of class 3 and 9c buildings on the NSW Planning Portal.

• These changes applied to new class 3 and 9c building projects. Alteration or renovation work for existing buildings will come into effect on 1 July 2026.

Fire safety

We also introduced the Fire Safety Regulation 2022. These new laws require designers, builders and maintenance workers to be more accountable for fire safety systems. The requirements aim to reduce the risk of death or injury, damage to property and fire safety defects.

The changes are being introduced in stages starting from 13 February 2023.

Learn more about the reforms to fire safety regulation.

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This consultation is for NSW Fair Trading, Department of Customer Service.

Have your say consultations are run by the NSW Department of Customer Service (McKell Building, 2-4 Rawson Place, Haymarket NSW 2000).

We are interested in hearing from the community and will use the information we collect from you to help develop the programs and services that NSW Government provides.

We are collecting only minimal personal information from you. We may collect basic information like your name and contact details, if you choose to provide them. You may provide some personal information in response to questions that we ask you. For example, we may ask you about your experiences or opinions about a particular topic.

Having your say is voluntary and you are not legally required to provide any personal information to us. For some consultations, though, you will not be able to have your say unless you agree to include your personal information.

If you do provide personal information to us, you have a right to access it, and can ask us to correct it if it is wrong.

We may share personal information you provide with other parts of the Department of Customer Service (for example, with our Data Analytics Centre) so that we can conduct analysis across all consultations and refine our engagement methodology.

Where we conduct a consultation on behalf of a partner agency, we would usually share the information that we collect with that agency. Partner agencies for each consultation are listed on the webpage for that consultation.

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You can contact our Privacy Coordinator by calling 13 77 88 or by emailing Privacy@customerservice.nsw.gov.au.