In late March 2026, Australia’s Federal Court quietly dismissed a heavily funded $1.5 billion class action proceeding alleging that a leading brand’s aluminium composite panels (a.k.a. facade cladding) were inherently unsafe and non-compliant with the Building Code of Australia (BCA).
Effectively, the finding scotches assertions that the entire product category – cladding – is dangerous, yet virtually no news outlets have run with this major revelation despite the historical litany of media scares carried when ‘combustible cladding’ anxieties were splashed across most Aussie mastheads, just a few years ago.
Before going any further, it’s vital to acknowledge that cladding-related fires have had, in some cases, deadly consequences.
The Lacrosse fire in Melbourne gave a serious warning. Facade fires in China and the UAE have proven fatal. The UK’s Grenfell Tower tragedy saw a profound human loss that continues to resonate: lives lost, families displaced and for many owners and residents, financial and emotional impacts that still persist.
Context and their consequences mustn’t be diminished as we look to learn from the past.
But when I wrote ‘quietly’ earlier, it was pointedly. If you’d monitored and read the business and news media while the cladding scandal raged (as I did as an issues management and PR adviser to a leading cladding brand), you’d be forgiven for thinking that the main problem in the cladding crisis was the companies who made cladding products.
By law, all and any cladding had to be deemed fit-for-use and signed off as such by a system of assessors, inspectors and surveyors whose job it was to judge suitability of any cladding in any situ. That’s a more complicated story than “deadly cladding”. And during the height of the facade panel crisis, it was not always the story being shrieked or written about.
Media Framing
Whether due to ethical carelessness or skim research, several journalists opted to sully a few specific cladding brands – yet mysteriously not some others who also had PE varietals – and, thus, stress tested the risk and continuity frameworks of several entities who had followed codes and guides.
While the media garnered clicks and hits, named brands had to fund and resource defence of their products and reputation as media reiterated or regurgitated narratives very possibly fed by competitive interests, backtracking regulators and opportunistic predators.
For over six years, my colleagues and I provided issues and stakeholder management support to what media shorthanded as the ‘combustible cladding crisis’.
Our work mostly entailed working with commercial teams, engineers, lawyers, regulators and scientists to understand the facts in detail, and then communicate those facts clearly, creatively and consistently to stakeholders who deserved more than horror headlines or attempted ‘gotchas’.
The fact always was that cladding makers really had no oversight of how cladding would be used, or whether it would be used within adequate fire protection systems mandated by regulations.
We worked hard to have this point included in any media reportage yet – honestly – it often proved too complex for some sub-editors or time-stressed writers to include.
I remember one journalist telling me the cladding issue was “…just too complicated to really get your head around”. He was a national business editor at the time.
Trying to brief, educate and remind reporters about the manufacturers’ distance from how cladding is finally used, fell on – possibly deliberately – deaf ears. We had to request an editor make one of his scribes meet with us and our client so we could directly counter and educate on repeat errors that had been included in their reports.
Pareto-informed public relations
Adhering to the Pareto 80/20 principle, we always briefed key clients accounts ahead of any mischievous story being published. We identified customers of possible attacks and slights that the stories might carry, and regularly restated that client products were fit-for-purpose.
Even when a hostile blue-top news reporter fired a series of uninformed, ambush allegations at us with a 30-minute response deadline, we got our reply legally approved and carried in her story rather than having the brand say nothing. And we told key clients of her ‘ambush’ methodology, too; this helped us build credibility, rapport and trust re brand product safety.
For issues and crisis advisers facing similar waves of media distortion or over-simplification, several practices proved critical to our strategic response:
1. Repeat fact-bridging: Never assume understanding. Complex truths must be translated repeatedly, accessibly and without dilution – especially when media use broad brushes to paint a crisis narrative. If you don’t explain it accurately, someone else might simplify it inaccurately.
2. Proactive correction over reactive complaint: Witnessing repeat errors, we pushed for senior editorial engagement – elevating sloppy practice to newsroom leaders – to walk reporters through the facts, science and applicable regulatory parameters.
3. Stakeholder pre-briefing as insulation: Accepting you may not win every headline, you can ensure key stakeholders hear the facts from you first; before and not after, problematic coverage lands. Trust can’t be reliant on media interpretation.
4. Timeliness with accuracy: Even under hostile deadlines, we prioritised getting a legally sound response into most stories run. Silence implies agreement, so participation helps anchor your position in the public record – and in SEO/GEO finds.
5. Expose process, not just profile: Where media tactics were questionable (e.g. ambush deadlines), I suggest transparently communicating this to the client and key stakeholders. More than product defence, this builds credibility in how the story itself is being shaped.
Defending reputation attacks – especially in this era of digital disinformation – requires us to have a consistent and safe strategy and reliable ‘trust-channels’, which we can develop and stick to from the earliest days.
Re cladding, we developed a considered and sound issues handling strategy which the client understood, accepted and stuck to.
Additionally, we were part of a wider team of multi-disciplinary experts, among them commercial, government relations and legal specialists who were all pulling in the same strategic direction.
Cladding Safety Victoria Findings
Now a few years old, a comparable Cladding Safety Victoria (CSV) report also insisted that ‘chain-of-responsibility’ processes should be introduced and enforced so that all parties – architects, builders, cladding manufacturers, developers and surveyors – have a duty of care and liability to ensure the right products, meeting precise construction code requirements are properly fitted to make sure buildings, and their fire systems, deliver a fully compliant and safe structure.
The CSV report underlined how data reveals widespread misapplication of Victoria’s regulatory requirements for external wall cladding by the key professionals responsible for the design and permitting of buildings, namely the architects, draftspersons, fire safety engineers and building surveyors.
In truth, constant negative media mentions about so-called flammable cladding caused sizeable problems for the brand we consulted to at home and in overseas territories, yet it didn’t break them. One reason why was that their key customers knew they would hear the truth throughout the travails.
In short, our clients survived largely because (as the CSV and Federal Court findings suggest) they were in the right and because communication and transparency to key stakeholders was clear, consistent and credibly anchored in data, product tests and compliance reports.
As March’s Federal Court findings and the Cladding Safety Victoria report before it effectively confirm, the narrative that much of the media presented about cladding itself being the problem was broad-brush, un-nuanced and, often, alarmingly sensationalist. And that’s not new territory for media reports amid a crisis.
What Must We All Learn ?
But that fact – and the costs it forced some brands to pay to defend themselves – will likely pass without any media admissions, consequences, compensations or punishment at all.
What’s now emerged in court findings and earlier regulatory reviews is a more complete and, frankly, more useful picture of the facade cladding issue.
There’s now a clearer and more accurate narrative yet it’s not one the media currently seems interested in exploring or writing about. Yes, a few legal websites are dissecting the latest court case findings, but mainstream media are not touching it with a scaffolding pole.
The case of ‘at risk’ cladding shows the necessity for all parties involved – architects, builders, developers, fire engineers, manufacturers and surveyors – to do the right thing ultimately in the best interests of property owners whose premises and homes use these products.
But what about the media who churned out hundreds of horror story headlines, creating alarm, uncertainly and costs for both the public and construction sector practitioners?
What did they learn or became accountable for, as a result of this awful situation ?
