Australia’s builders and building product suppliers are facing unbearable strain from an escalating number of state and territory variations to the National Construction Code (NCC), an advocacy group says.

And the situation is getting worse, with two states each adding more than 100 new variations to the 2025 update of the Code (NCC 2025).

In a statement released last week, the Building Products Innovation Council (BPIC) warned that the national consistency which Australia’s National Construction Code is intended to deliver is being eroded by an exploding number of variations to the Code which are being adopted by individual states and territories.

“Although the NCC is intended to operate as a nationally harmonised regulatory framework, states and territories have continued to go their separate ways,” BPIC executive officer Rodger Hills said.

“They have also introduced large numbers of jurisdiction-specific amendments, even as they publicly express concern about the complexity of the NCC.”

Hills’ comments come as the Federal Treasury is conducting a review of National Construction Code and its governance arrangements.

The review aims to ensure that the NCC and its governing arrangement’s are fit for purpose and are not adding undue complexity or compliance burden.

The NCC is Australia’s primary set of technical, performance-based requirements for the design, construction and plumbing of buildings.

Produced by the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), it establishes the minimum standards which new buildings are required to meet in terms of safety, health, amenity, accessibility and sustainability.

In its recently released interim report, Treasury said that there are widespread concerns that the Code is failing to deliver a clear and consistent national framework for the regulation of new building and construction work.

According to that report, the Code is no longer operating as intended, has grown in complexity and has been eroded in terms of confidence and trust in its integrity.

In its report, Treasury found that concerns surround five areas (refer report).

One such area involves a lack of consistency regarding how the Code is being applied at the state and territory level.

On this score, the report found that variations to the Code and its interpretation which are being adopted at the individual state and territory level are making national consistency virtually impossible and are leading to greater levels of cost, complexity and uncertainty surrounding compliance with code requirements.

It cites the example of new heated water service requirements that were introduced in the 2022 update of the Code (NCC 2022). These were intended to reduce the risk of scalding and to improve efficiency.

Rather than adopting the requirements in a nationally consistent way, individual states and territories have implemented a hodge podge of different and requirements. As a result, different rules apply across individual states as to when the requirements apply, what systems are permitted and how compliance is demonstrated.

The report also noted concern about inconsistent timeframes regarding the adoption of the Code updates.

For instance, in relation to the 2025 update of the Code:

• Victoria and Tasmania adopted the Code on 1 May 2026
• The ACT and Western Australia also adopted the Code on this date but with a twelve month transition period
• South Australia is adopting the 2005 update of the Plumbing Code of Australian (volume 3 of the NCC) on 1 May 2026 but is not adopting the Building Code of Australia (volumes 1 and 2 of the NCC) until 1 May 2027
• New South Wales and Queensland have delayed adoption until 1 May 2027; and
• The Northern Territory has not adopted NCC 2025.

In response, the report suggests that several actions should be considered to reduce the number of variations, uphold national timeframes and improve transparency and accountability in regard to decisions regarding state and territory variations.

In its statement, the BPIC highlighted both the inconsistencies in adoption timeframes along with the variations.

In relation to the latter issue the BPIC highlights that:

• Tasmania has introduced 125 new variations to NCC 2025. Combined with the 25 pre-existing variations from NCC 2022, this equates to 150 state-based variations and more than 53 pages of additional requirements that the state’s practitioners need to interpret and apply.
• The situation is even more pronounced in New South Wales, where state variations have increased from 16 in NCC 2022 to more than 210 in NCC 2025. This is an expansion of approximately 70 pages of additional regulation.
• Similar trends are evident across other jurisdictions, many of which have quietly introduced substantial new variations while continuing to assert that the NCC is overly complex, burdensome red tape.

In its statement, the BPIC takes issue with the notion that state variations do not add regulation but merely ‘change’ what needs to be done.

In practice, it says that state-based variations require practitioners to navigate the NCC back and forth to determine what applies, what has been replaced and under what conditions.

“Whether a variation substitutes a clause, a sentence, or just a single word, the effect is the same: greater time spent interpreting the NCC and a higher risk of misinterpretation, uncertainty, and non‑compliance,” Hills said.

From a national viewpoint , the BPIC arguses that state and territory variations dilute the benefits which are associated with a nationally harmonised code.

In particular, BPIC argues that such variations:

• increase compliance costs for manufacturers, builders, and designers
• reduce productivity by requiring jurisdiction-specific design and construction solutions
• create barriers to national supply chains and economies of scale; and
• introduce uncertainty for industry participants operating across multiple jurisdictions.

More transparency needed on state-based variations

According to the BPIC, a particular concern involves a lack of national oversight or transparency with regard to state variations.

“Many variations are developed after the NCC public comment draft period, meaning industry has no opportunity to review or provide feedback before they are introduced,” Hills said.

“In effect, they circumvent the normal code development process.”

“Unlike national provisions, state and territory variations are not required to meet policy-neutrality tests, demonstrate no increase in regulatory stringency, or undergo any form of regulation impact statement process to assess economic or productivity implications,” Hills said.

“Additionally, since state variations are not subject to national rigour, they risk contradicting or weakening other parts of the NCC.

“BPIC welcomes the Federal Treasury’s NCC Modernisation Project as an important step toward improving regulatory clarity and efficiency. However, a critical question remains: how will the modernisation process address the escalating volume of state and territory variations that continue to undermine national consistency?

“Australia’s manufacturers, builders, and product suppliers rely on a stable, predictable, and harmonised regulatory environment. “Without effective reform to jurisdictional variation practices, the benefits of a modernised NCC risk being overshadowed by continued regulatory fragmentation.”

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