Tough new laws target builders

Lifetime bans and jail for offenders

THE State Government wants to fast-track laws against unscrupulous construction companies that include builder licence bans and jail time for repeat offenders.

Subcontractors yesterday welcomed the move, saying it would restore security to the industry which has been rocked by a series of construction company collapses and illegal phoenix activities which have stopped them being paid for their work.

The new laws, tabled in State Parliament yesterday, would see project bank accounts established for Government projects from January 1, with a rollout to private jobs after that, holding progress payments, retention money and disputed funds in trust for the subcontractor.

If passed, the Bill would also see fines increase for those who don’t pay up after they’ve lost an adjudication, and penalties including fines up to $44,000 or a year’s jail for people who operate unlicensed — whether or not they’re formal directors of a company.

A simplified, “no secondchance” claims system and a licence ban on anyone who has been secretly involved in running a construction company that goes bankrupt or has its building licence revoked would also be enforced and the

QBCC would be given greater investigative powers.

The Bill also reintroduces mandatory financial reporting for licensed builders, a change from a system of self-reporting.

It has been referred to the Parliament’s Public Works and Utlities Committee for consideration ahead of further consultation and a parliamentary vote.

Les Williams, whose Sub- contractors Alliance helped draft the new legislation, said it would make the state’s subbies among the best protected in Australia.

He said current laws had created a system where some people were operating with the deliberate goal to liquidate their own companies and profit from the work of unsecured subbies.

“At the moment, a subcontractors or client can look at a builder and say `they’re licensed, they must be OK’, but it’s been a self-reporting regimen,” he said.

Introducing the Bill, Housing Minister Mick de Brenni told parliament it would “usher in an era of fairness in the building and construction industry that we have never been seen before in this state, or in our nation”.

“You do the work. You should get paid. For far too long subcontractors have suffered an unreasonably high level of risk and burden of financial loss associated with the building and construction industry,” he said.

“The majority of the risk in a $44 billion industry has been placed on the shoulders of those who have the least power. And the result has been a disaster for small and medium sized subcontracting businesses.

“Non-payment has busted apart families. It’s made people homeless. It has been a mental health disaster.”