PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

It seems a little redundant to welcome you back to a new year in March, but here we are. With Christmas a distant memory and everyone well entrenched into the new year, most of us would have our goals set and strategies in place for the next 12 months.

The last 48 months have been some of the most prosperous for our trades in Queensland history. It would be naive to think this golden run can never end. The boom experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic is close to the end and the economic squeeze through the cost-of-living raises is certain to have an effect on the disposable income in the family budget. The status quo is set to be here for a while until the market steadies.

The experts are indicating a significant slowing of the new domestic construction, and the approvals for large developments are also anticipated to drop. The result of this downturn is less new work for our trades.

History would indicate that when the volume of work drops, the tendency is to start reducing the price in an attempt to keep busy. This strategy is not sustainable and will quickly turn a profitable and successful business into a floundering, unsustainable entity. It is an unfortunate fact of life that the fixed costs and outgoings of a business rarely ever decrease, and it is essential to maintain your markup and margin even when the volume of work has relaxed.

Master Plumbers’ Association of Queensland has developed a Charge Out Rate Calculator to document the fixed expenses and outgoing costs that a plumbing business experiences in a 12-month period. It is an especially useful tool to check if your business is covering its costs and making the desired margin on its trading expectations. The charge out rate calculator is a musthave tool for all trade businesses that are starting out and are unsure what they need to be charging to make their business profitable. To receive a copy of the Charge Out Rate Calculator, contact the MPAQ office at info@mpaq.com.au or visit www.mpaq.com.au.

As the construction industry settles down and returns to some sort of normalcy, the ugly reality of mental health is sure to rear its head. Suicide in the construction industry continues to be at an unacceptable level. In order to make a change, it is something we all need to understand and embrace. Plumbers are a major player in the Queensland construction industry, and we need to stand together with the other industry associations and advocate for a better outcome than we are achieving at the moment. One death from suicide in our industry is one too many. The MPAQ events team has another busy calendar this year and I will attend as many events as possible. If you see me out and about, please feel free to say hello.