The crisis got real for Joe Barr in late March. Construction sites in pandemic-ravaged Italy and Spain were closing and the country's largest building companies feared the same would happen in Australia.
"It was late March, when we were hearing everything that was being done in Europe, it was 'Oh my God, we’re going to have to stop the industry if we don’t manage this process'," says Barr, the chief executive of China Communications Construction Company-owned builder and developer John Holland.