$187,000 FOR A TRADIE
Convention centre delay as wages revealed
LEAKED salary documents have revealed the enormous wages paid on the Cairns Convention Centre expansion project as another delay pushes back completion.
The Cairns Post can reveal a full-time carpenter working 44 hours over six days is earning more than $187,000 a year.
LEAKED salary documents have revealed the enormous wages paid on the Cairns Convention Centre expansion project as another delay pushes back the completion date by months.
The Cairns Post can reveal a full-time carpenter working a 40-hour week with four hours on Saturdays is earning $187,281 a year on the worksite, including meal, site, travel and tool and other allowances.
For casual workers, that figure is $188,418 – more than $100,000 more than the trade’s average salary of $76,008.
The sky-high wages are a result of fierce bargaining from the CFMEU to secure state government “best practice” conditions, which include the right to immediately stop work if on-site temperatures hit 35C, or 27C with 75 per cent humidity.
The wage revelations come as the completion date for the $176m project is pushed back again to December 2022.
Public Works Minister Mick de Brenni said work was well under way but construction was hampered by industry-wide delays “beyond anyone’s control” including material and trade shortages – as well as latent conditions underground.
“They include contaminated water and the discovery of asbestos, including in the form of buried and undocumented pipes,” he said.
“Given the shortages and unavoidable issues, the builder – Lendlease – earlier this
month asked for an extension until December 2022 and after careful consideration we decided this week to grant that to ensure the project continues safely and on a realistic schedule.
“Like all projects around the world, the Convention Centre expansion has not been immune from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Most significantly, reinforcement steel supply shortages has been a major contributor to construction delays including ground beams and pile caps and other materials.
“Ultimately though we must ensure this project keeps moving forward, safely of course, because this sort of infrastructure project is even more critical to Cairns with the major tourism impacts ongoing.”
Mr de Brenni defended the high wages being paid to tradies through the best practice Buy Queensland procurement rules.
“If you ask them, they’ll tell you they’re as skilled and worthwhile as a tradie on major projects elsewhere in Queensland,” he said.
“When workers have quality employment, that flows on as a benefit to their local economy every time they spend their wages in places like shops and clubs, which is why best practice conditions apply to all major projects across the state.”