Florence

What are your main areas of concern for the industry right now?

With the effects of COVID-19 casting such a threatening shadow, we have one job and that is to support Master Builders member businesses as well as those in the broader industry and building supply chain to remain viable so they can emerge successful.

Right from the beginning everything we’ve done has been about keeping people safe and protecting businesses and jobs. Our industry provides so much opportunity only if all the businesses that work in it can keep their doors open.

In the first instance that meant that we needed to go “all out” to ensure that our industry was deemed essential by governments so it wasn’t shut down like it has been in some overseas countries.

Our contacts in Government have been crucial and alliances with industry stakeholders were formed to ensure there was a clear message from all in the industry that it was essential for the well-being of the industry, its workforce and the economy that we remained open for business but on the basis that we introduced new safety protocols to ensure the well-being of everyone on a building site.

Our alliances included working with the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining And Energy Union and the Australian Workers’ Union which if anyone had suggested that alliance prior to COVID-19, I would have told them that would never happen under any circumstance — but it has! It exemplifies the intensity of the issue we were facing but also the need to go back to the fundamental goal — what do we have to do to ensure the viability of our industry.

We have now turned our minds to the economic impacts of the crisis. The industry is so reliant on investment, but private investors no longer have funds to invest or not the confidence to do so. This means that while work on projects that were underway pre-COVID have in the main continued, we are seeing a major drop off in forward contracts of around 40 - 50%. So, our focus is to seek Government stimulus to ensure the industry still has work to do while that in turn enables the economy to recover and provide confidence back into the private sector market.