Queensland's joined New South Wales in deferring adoption of the 2025 National Construction Code by another twelve months. Given everything I've written about builder insolvencies since 2023, this reads like a sensible bit of triage, new compliance costs are the last thing that industry needs layered on top of everything else it's absorbing right now.
There's a tradeoff, obviously. The updated code presumably brings genuine improvements, energy efficiency mostly, that now get pushed further down the road. Policy is full of these tensions, protect the builders currently keeping the supply pipeline alive, or push forward standards that matter for the long term.
I don't think there's a clean answer. Given where the insolvency numbers have been sitting, I understand why the government leaned toward the deferral. Doesn't mean the tradeoff disappeared, just means it's been postponed along with the code itself.