Nailing down issues that ail construction
THE Queensland Government has been warned that more major developers could collapse this year, leaving thousands more subcontractors out of pocket, if urgent action is not taken to clean up the state’s construction industry.
More than 50 building companies have collapsed in Queensland since 2013, leaving more than 7000 subbies unpaid.
No criminal charges have been laid against any of the major companies in that time, despite industry figures estimating $500 million has been left owing to subcontractors.
News Queensland will reveal the extent of the damage in a Back Our Subbies series, which will call for the establishment of a police taskforce to clean up shoddy practices and protect workers and their families. In the series, to run across the state’s 14 biggest daily reveal:
• Why Queensland needs a properly resourced taskforce to enforce laws that already exist;
• The impact on thousands of hardworking subcontractors and their families;
• How developers are gaming the system with the support of banks to protect both their self-interests; and
• The extent to which senior government figures were warned of major collapses and failed to act.
Already this year, a string of newspapers, we will Queensland builders have hit trouble, including Queensland Custom Homes and G.J. Gardner Homes at North Ipswich.
Industry expert David Chandler, a former head of the Fletcher Construction Group and a foundation member of the Project Management Institute, said authorities needed to get tough and to start charging wrongdoers, instead of seemingly extending them a “get out of jail free card”.
J.M. Kelly Builders at Rockhampton, the Brisbane-based Cullen Group and Queensland One Homes are some of the biggest builders to go into liquidation in the past 18 months.
Subcontractor groups point to the 2013 planned exit of Walton Construction and Walton Construction Queensland, saying that if action had been taken then, much of the damage since could have been avoided.
“Governments can’t ignore it,” Subbies United founder John Goddard said.
Liquidator Michael Caspaney of Menzies Advisory, who will direct the Cullen public examination, said there was “evidence the system needs to be fixed”.
The Palaszczuk Government’s new Building Industry Fairness Act includes Project Bank Accounts to insulate, in trust, money owed to subcontractors and suppliers.
The Government has also announced stiffer Minimum Financial Requirements for building licence holders.