Building industry a new can of worms for commissioner

THANKS to the Gold Coast Bulletin (Feb 7) for the extensive account of the dire situation so many subbies, tradies and hopeful home buyers find themselves in after developers and builders have gone bust.

It is particularly disgusting to recall how many times the heads of these companies have been treated as heroes for job creation even after they had gone broke previously.

What sort of “job creation” is it when the workers are not paid their wages?

We have seen a type of snobbery here: the builder/developer is the one in the suit who appears in the media, claiming the sort of respectability that the head honchos of the finance industry also claimed. The truth is that the whole bunch of them would have been more use giving lessons in greed and dishonesty to Al Capone himself.

Meanwhile the subbies and tradies are waiting for wages owed so that they can pay their bills and live decently. So many of these are young men whose wife/ partner cannot go out to work to make up some of the shortfall, because their children are too young.

It seems that the Queensland Building & Construction Commission (QBCC) has performed no better for the building industry than APRA and ASIC have for financial consumers.

Let’s hope that the actions now being taken by those customers ill-treated by QBCC can bear some fruit.

Experience suggests that this will not be enough. An obvious step in the right direction would be to have a Royal Commission into the building industry.

Come back, Commissioner Hayne, the Gold Coast desperately needs you!