Connected politically or not means squat if you build a structure that collapses killing hundreds of people. At least I hope that is the case in any place under rule of law. Of course I would hate to see any kind of building failure that causes mass casualty. But are the execs of Meriton aware of such possibility?

I am reminded of the Sampoong Department Store collapse in Seoul, Korea. This happened in 1995. This was a very high end department store from what I heard. I know acquaintances who know of a family that lost multiple family members.

The family that owned the building was one of those chae-bul family in S. Korea with multiple business interests. I believe in top 50 at the time or something like it. So yes they were politically connected. But because of the catastrophic failure of the building with mass casualty, the family's entire holding was liquidated to pay for compensation to the victims' families. And the owner/owner's son both served lengthy prison terms.

Edit: While reading up on Sampoong incident, I learned the owner wanted original construction firm to take shortcuts to reduce cost, but they refused. So the owner fired the firm and started HIS OWN construction firm to build the building. At least someone had a backbone, stuck to what was right, and lost a big job/contract, but was proved to be in the right. I bet someone at the original construction firm let out a huge sigh of relief later.