Victoria sets up $600m cladding removal fund

Victoria wants the federal government to contribute to a $600 million fund to remove dangerous cladding from hundreds of buildings, including apartment blocks.

The fund will be overseen by a new body, Cladding Safety Victoria, with half the works to be funded directly by the state Labor government.

Premier Daniel Andrews has written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison to ask the federal Coalition government to pitch in the other $300 million to fix the problem.

If it doesn't, the state government plans changes to the building permit levy to help raise that amount over the next five years.

Victoria's cladding task force, set up after London's deadly Grenfell Tower inferno, has inspected more than 2000 buildings across the state.

About 500 of those buildings are considered high-risk and need rectification works to make them safe.

Mr Andrews says community safety is at the heart of the cladding task force's 35 recommendations released on today.

"When it comes to dealing with the cladding challenge, community safety has got to come first," he told reporters.

"Our firefighters and other first responders ... could well be called to fast-moving nasty, potentially deadly cladding fires, if we didn't take the action that we are announcing here."