Queensland building sites get 2½ days of productivity a week: Dexus
The chief executive of office, shopping and healthcare landlord Dexus says major Queensland construction sites are being obstructed by union-backed rostering that means they are productive for only half the week.
Ross Du Vernet said the lack of productivity on big Brisbane developments as the city prepared for the Olympic Games in 2032 was likely to get “worse before it gets better” as wages – and the number of days off – soared.
“It’s not unusual in Queensland, on these big sites, to have two and a half days a week of productivity,” he said on Monday. “Essentially, the amount of [rostered days off] up there, you’re effectively working a nine-day fortnight … you’re paying premium wages for part-time productivity.”
Du Vernet, which owns a number of massive office developments and shopping centres in Queensland, is not the first to warn about the cost and delays of building in the state ahead of the Olympic Games.
A new $3.79 billion 63,000-seat stadium in Brisbane’s inner north and a range of other new venues are heaping pressure on an industry grappling with ambitious plans to build new hospitals and a major tunnel rail project.
The Queensland government has made some changes to industrial laws, and in May scrapped controversial worker entitlements crafted by the CFMEU that included giving workers a month of rostered days off each year.
The conditions would also provide double-time pay if raining and allow workers to go home when temperatures reach 29 degrees and 75 per cent humidity. Queensland Treasury modelling last year said the conditions would trigger cost increases for projects of up to 25 per cent by 2030 and create a net economic cost of up to $17 billion.
The CFMEU, in a calendar distributed to its members, outlines the days workers are allowed off, showing they are grouped together meaning construction sites could be idle for an entire week at a time.
Du Vernet said governments were modifying planning systems to smooth the way for construction, but were being stymied by poor productivity.
“All the good work the government is doing is actually unlocking planning pathways [and] means we’ve had more approvals and more sites ready to build,” he said. “The private sector is prepared to work with government on that because it’s not an easy fix … that is actually going to be the big constraint on us moving forward and actually gets worse before it gets better.”
Labour productivity in the state is only 5 per cent higher than it was three decades ago, the Queensland Productivity Commission said in July.
Du Vernet said overall productivity growth in the past three decades was about 50 per cent, while labour productivity fell 12 per cent.
“We’d all acknowledge there’s some pressure coming out of the system, but actually we have a more systemic issue,” he said.
“Technology can clearly play a role. Immigration can play a role in how we bring all those forces together, because we’re going to have to do it if we’re going to be successful.”
