Engineered stone ban leaves builders, customers in disarray
A national decision to ban engineered stone products left companies in Australia’s home-building sector unable to tell customers on Wednesday if they could supply benchtops they had contracted to buy, or whether they would have to go back and renegotiate new products at new prices.
The agreement by workplace relations and work health and safety ministers to ban the supply and manufacture of engineered stone, with “the majority” of jurisdictions to implement the prohibition from July 1 next year, was clear, said Simon Croft, Housing Industry Association chief executive of industry and policy.
Banned from July 1, 2024, but industry says the lack of detail about existing contracts with engineered stone products is disappointing and confusing. Eddie Jim
But Mr Croft said calls the HIA had been fielding from companies about whether they could take new orders, how to manage orders already received, or what to tell customers in display homes about existing or alternative products showed the detail missing in the ministers’ statement.
“What that [means] for current project and current orders, or contracts being entered into now, is where we need to have greater clarity,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
The ban agreed by federal, state and territory ministers was largely expected after a report by agency Safe Work Australia recommended it for the artificial product made of up to 90 per cent crystalline silica, with minerals, resins and pigments.
While widely used for kitchen and bathroom benchtops, the dust emitted from it in cutting causes silicosis, an often-fatal lung disease, and workers of engineered stone were over-represented among people diagnosed with the disease, the report said.
The statement by ministers, led by Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Tony Burke, said there would be further discussion before they met again in March to agree on a transition period for contracts entered into on or before Wednesday’s agreement.
It said there needed to be agreed exceptions to the ban for removal, repair, modification and disposal of engineered stone products installed before the ban, as well as exemptions for products with trace levels (less than 1 per cent) of crystalline silica.
It further said border controls would need to be in place to prevent imports from circumventing the domestic ban.
Master Builders Australia, which said it was committed to working with the regulator on the ban, said it was disappointed at the legal uncertainty over transition arrangements.
These included relevant contractual obligations relating to existing fixed-price residential contracts, the availability of suitable alternative products at a similar price point and implications for businesses with significant quantities of engineered stone products in stock, and whether there would be compensation or buy-back schemes.
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