Amend­ments to NCC 2022 com­menc­ing on 1 May 2025

Back­ground

The Aus­tralian Build­ing Codes Board (ABCB), a joint ini­tia­tive of the Com­mon­wealth and state and ter­ri­to­ry gov­ern­ments togeth­er with the build­ing and plumb­ing indus­tries, is respon­si­ble for the Nation­al Con­struc­tion Code, Water­Mark and Code­Mark Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Schemes, and reg­u­la­to­ry reform in the con­struc­tion industry. 

One of the ABCB’s pri­ma­ry roles is to update and main­tain the Nation­al Con­struc­tion Code (NCC) to ensure it is part of an effec­tive and con­tem­po­rary reg­u­la­to­ry system. 

NCC 2022 Amend­ment 1

From 1 May 2025, the NCC 2022 is to be read in light of amend­ments out­lined in NCC 2022 Amend­ment 1. 

The main pur­pose of this amend­ment is to cor­rect errors and make updates to state and ter­ri­to­ry vari­a­tions. These amend­ments con­tain vari­a­tions and addi­tions for West­ern Aus­tralia, a vari­a­tion for Tas­ma­nia regard­ing Vol­ume Two Part H8, and a few minor corrections.

The updates will have lim­it­ed, if any, affect on the design of ongo­ing projects in New South Wales. How­ev­er nation­al devel­op­ers and con­trac­tors must be aware of them.

NCC 2022

The NCC is updat­ed every 3 years, based on required reg­u­la­to­ry prac­tices, indus­try research, pub­lic feed­back and pol­i­cy direc­tions from gov­ern­ments between pub­lish­ing cycles.

The cur­rent NCC ver­sion is NCC 2022, hav­ing been adopt­ed by states and ter­ri­to­ries on 1 May 2023.

NCC 2022

Whilst NCC 2022 is due to be replaced this year (2025), the ABCB has advised that the adop­tion of NCC 2025 has been delayed and will not be pub­lished in May in line with the usu­al timetable and advised prac­ti­tion­ers to con­tin­ue to work in accor­dance with the cur­rent version.

The ABCB issued the fol­low­ing statement 

‘While some prac­ti­tion­ers are famil­iar with the changes we pro­posed in the Pub­lic Com­ment Draft (May 2024), we have not yet pro­vid­ed our final advice to Build­ing Min­is­ters and, there­fore, no deci­sion has been made about the con­tent, pub­li­ca­tion or com­mence­ment of any future edi­tion,” the state­ment reads.

“Prac­ti­tion­ers should con­tin­ue work­ing in accor­dance with the NCC ver­sion, and adop­tion time­line, cur­rent­ly in place in the juris­dic­tion rel­e­vant to their work.’

The pub­lic com­ment draft (PCD) of the pro­posed NCC 2025 was released in May 2024, and pro­vid­ed for 17 sig­nif­i­cant amend­ments, including 

• major updates to ener­gy effi­cien­cy stan­dards in com­mer­cial build­ings aimed at the reduc­tion of emis­sions and a move to a net zero future;
• enhanced fire safe­ty pro­vi­sions for carparks aimed at address­ing the fire-relat­ed risks asso­ci­at­ed with mod­ern carparks, such as increased vehi­cle size, fuel load (increased use of plas­tic), new fuel sources and changes in the way we store vehicles;
• improved con­den­sa­tion mit­i­ga­tion aimed at bet­ter man­age­ment of the risk of con­den­sa­tion in the res­i­den­tial parts of some build­ings; and
• improved water man­age­ment con­trols aimed at reduc­ing the inci­dence of build­ing defects caused by poor sub-sur­face water management. 

A detailed sum­ma­ry of the amend­ments can be found here.