Combustible cladding could be used safely when designing buildings and only led to added risk if used by careless, incompetent building-industry "villains", a court has heard.
German manufacturer 3A Composites and its Australian distributor Halifax Vogel Group (HVG) are facing a Federal Court class action over a type of cladding linked to several disastrous blazes worldwide.
They include the Grenfell Tower inferno in London in July 2017, when 72 people died, and the non-fatal Lacrosse fire in Melbourne in November 2014.
