Improving productivity in the building and construction industry is a central driver to building a strong Queensland economy, delivering housing targets and planned infrastructure, and increasing industry capacity over time.
Despite efforts to grow the Queensland building and construction industry workforce, labour shortages persist and affordability problems mean that we need to find ways of doing more with less. We need to turn around the declining rates of productivity and find new, more productive ways to build that don’t compromise safety or quality.
Under the former state government’s policy settings, our analysis shows up to 96 working days were lost in a calendar year because of a lack of flexibility in the use of rostered days off (RDOs) and working hours generally. If Best Practice Industry Conditions (BPICs) were exercised to their full extent, the cost to build a two-bedroom apartment blew out by 33 per cent – from $870,000 to $1.16m.
Long construction supply chains make paper-based traceability a nightmare in the construction industry. On some major projects, entire teams of people are needed to keep track of the paper trail. Digital traceability would eliminate much of that effort. Similarly, increasing the uptake of digital and information technology (IT) systems would improve productivity in businesses.
What we are going to work to deliver
Advocacy with government:
- 1. Restore productivity on Queensland Government building projects by permanently repealing the industrial relations provisions of the Best Practice Industry Conditions (BPICs).
- 2. Review the remaining (safety, training and ethical supply mandate) provisions of the Best Practice Industry Conditions to ensure they improve productivity.
- 3. Introduce a new ‘Queensland Code for Tendering and Performance in Building & Construction Work’ backed by a strong regulatory compliance body to oversee productivity.
- 4. Government leadership on the shared building blocks of traceability to facilitate the development of digital traceability systems across the construction supply chain.
Master Builders-led initiatives:
- Support government efforts to identify barriers and implement solutions to improve productivity in the building and construction industry.
- Work with construction unions to ensure enterprise agreements are implemented in a fair and flexible manner to improve productivity on work sites.
Major Sponsors
