Australian Building Codes Board

The Australian Building Codes Board or ABCB is a body that writes Australia's standardized building requirements including the National Construction Code (NCC), WaterMark, and CodeMark. The ABCB is formed as part of a joint endeavor by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments with Australia's plumbing and building industries.

Australian Building Codes Board
Agency overview
FormedMarch 1, 1994 (1994-03-01)
Headquarters12/224 Bunda St, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Websitewww.abcb.gov.au

The ABCB is "the authority responsible for building regulation in Australia".[1] The regulations in the NCC are revised every three years. The most recent revision is the NCC 2022.

Organisation

The Australian Building Codes Board, commonly abbreviated as ABCB,[2][3][4] is a collective body formed in a partnership between the state, territorial and national governments; and with industry players of the plumbing and building industries of Australia.[5][6][7] The ABCB was formed, by the aforementioned three levels of government (state, territorial, national), in an Inter-Government Agreement that was signed on 1 March 1994.[7][8] The ABCB has strived to take steps in reforming the building regulations and the regulatory framework for building since the introduction of the Building Code of Australia (BCA), which today is part of the National Construction Code (NCC).[6]

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the ABCB worked on the development of a universal building code for Australia. In the mid 90s this was expanded to include performance-based codes. In 2011, their publication by the name "NCC" was expanded to incorporate codes for plumbing and construction as well.[6]

By 2015, the ABCB had certain plans to improve the NCC, such as enhancing public access to the NCC online, making quantitative measures of the NCC's performance, lessening the diverging regulations as applied to certain states, and broadening the NCC to include an aggregation of all building-site regulations to prevent overlaps in regulation.[9]

Till 2015, the ABCB revised the BCA regularly. After 2016, the revision period was extended to 3 years.[10]

Until then the ABCB was a standards writing body of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG);[7] while Scott Morrison was the Prime Minister he abolished the COAG and replaced it by the National Cabinet. It is unclear if the current national cabinet administers the ABCB.

Responsibilities

The ABCB is responsible for maintaining requirements which apply to the building and construction industry. These collections include: the National Construction Code which consists of the (Building Code of Australia and the[11] Plumbing Code of Australia); and the WaterMark and CodeMark Certification Schemes.[5]

National Construction Code
Main article: National Construction Code

The National Construction Code (NCC) allows the ABCB to introduce minimum standards in the building and construction industry. An example of this is the current energy efficiency standards.[12] The design of buildings built in Australia must be such that they are deemed to satisfy the requirements as stated by the ABCB.[13]

The ABCB accredits certifiers, both council and private, that have the authority to certify the designs of buildings and to deem them compliant.[3]

WaterMark

WaterMark is a certification scheme for certain plumbing and drainage products that is mandatory for those products to have to be compliant. WaterMark applies nationally, across the whole of Australia, and is managed by the ABCB. The certificates of compliance of the products are issued by Conformity Assessment Bodies who are accredited by the ABCB.[14]

CodeMark

CodeMark is a certification scheme for building products and systems in Australia and New Zealand. It was developed, and is administered by, the ABCB. The aim of the ABCB and the New Zealand Department of Building and Housing in maintaining Code Mark is to create confidence and determinability for regulatory bodies by the issuance of Certificates of Conformity.[15][16]

Other

The ABCB released Volume 1 of the NCC 2022 in May of 2022.[17]

References

Citations
  1. Iyer-Raniga & Wong 2012, p. 138.
  2. Lawania 2016, p. x.
  3. Shih 2015, p. xv.
  4. Bell et al. 2022, pp. 2, 6.
  5. ABCB 2022.
  6. Shih 2015, p. 23.
  7. RAIA 2017.
  8. Newhouse 2012, p. 1.
  9. Shih 2015, pp. 23, 25.
  10. Shih 2015, p. 127.
  11. Palutikof et al. 2014, p. 425.
  12. Lawania 2016, p. v.
  13. Lawania 2016, p. 171.
  14. "What is WaterMark? | WaterMark". watermark.abcb.gov.au. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  15. "CodeMark Certification Scheme | CodeMark". codemark.abcb.gov.au. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  16. JAS-ANZ (2014-11-19). "CodeMark". www.jas-anz.org. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  17. Rossi 2022.

Bibliography
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