Queensland’s building watchdog is under a cloud over serious allegations that it has failed to protect Queenslanders from dangerous building practices, writes Des Houghton.
Des HoughtonDecember 12, 2020 - 12:00AM The Courier-Mail
After a six-year battle with government regulators blocking his every move, Shaun McCrystal has succeeded in tearing down a wall of official secrecy to expose the building industry’s dirty little secret: Some apartment blocks are fire hazards, built too close to family homes just like his.
The 37-year-old junior surgeon from Yeronga, 7km south of the Brisbane CBD, reserves special criticism for the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, the Ombudsman, the Information Commissioner and The Speaker of Parliament.
Fire nightmare: Surgeon Shaun McCrystal near the neighbouring apartment block that experts said was built too close.
The QBCC not only failed its watchdog role, but repeatedly blocked his efforts to seek the truth, he said.
And he can prove it. An independent fire engineer’s report was damning.
McCrystal has every reason to be angry because he first raised serious questions about the project with the QBCC in July 2014. Refusing to be fobbed off, he took a scalpel to slice open the mysterious world of building codes and laws and the questionable approvals processes. And he found cancer.
Excellent work Mr McCrystal.
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