Subbies brace for big losses from troubled building firm

Subbies are bracing for more losses in the building industry, with fears troubled Sunshine Coast construction firm BA Murphy could owe up to $3m.

Subbies are bracing for more losses in the building industry, with fears troubled Sunshine Coast construction firm BA Murphy could owe up to $3m.

The Queensland Building and Construction Commission last week suspended the licence of BA Murphy after complaints it was not paying subbies on its various projects around south-east Queensland.

The company on Monday told subbies it was in the process of exiting its contracts on projects including the Luciana luxury residential building at St Lucia.

A new builder was looking at taking over that project.

BA Murphy director and founder Ben Murphy. Picture: Supplied

One subbie told City Beat that BA Murphy could owe upwards of $3m.

According to QBCC records, BA Murphy completed 98 projects worth $30.7m in 2020/21 and 100 jobs worth more than $27.5m the previous year. However, so far this financial year it had only completed three jobs worth $1.1m.

BA Murphy founder Ben Murphy comes from a multi-generational family of builders and has more than 20 years’ experience in the sector.

BA Murphy joins a growing list of building companies struggling with rising material and labour costs due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr Murphy did not respond to a request for comment.

Building sector woes continue.

FOWL PLAY

Brisbane property king Warren Ebert is no chicken, but that has not stopped him making a multi-million dollar investment in a cold storage warehouse in the top-end for the country’s biggest poultry producer.

Ebert’s Sentinel Property Group has invested $7.4m in the Darwin facility that is fully leased by national tenants including Ingham’s Group, the largest integrated poultry producer across Australia and New Zealand.

Ebert (illustrated) says Sentinel remains on the lookout for further acquisitions in the Northern Territory, which has an enormous couple of decades ahead of it with planned investments in the region of approximately $43 billion.

They include the $22 billion Australian-ASEAN Power Link Project, the $4.7 billion Santos Barossa Gas Field project and $8 billion in government defence infrastructure.

Warren Ebert in Darwin

“The money that is going into Darwin and throughout the Northern Territory is absolutely enormous and long term,” says Ebert. With one of the largest commercial property portfolios in Darwin, Sentinel has embarked on a $420 million capital raising to a buy the city’s Casuarina Square shopping centre from GPT Group.

The former Brisbane taxi-driver turned property mogul has hit the ground running after a controversial professional split earlier this year from his daughter Stacey, who is now running her own property business. Ebert started Sentinel in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago and built it into a fund management and property development business with $1.3bn in assets.

CLEM LEGACY

It has been 14 years since the passing of Clem Jones but great things are still being done in the name of the former Brisbane Lord Mayor.

The board of the Clem Jones Group, which continues the philanthropic works of Jones, met at Customs House last week where it was reported by chief executive Peter Johnstone that by the end of this financial year more than $30 million will have been donated in the name and memory of Clem and his wife Sylvia since Jones’ death in 2007.

In part these funds have led to the establishment of The Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research at the University of Queensland, The Clem Jones Centre for Neurobiology and Stem Cell Research at Griffith University and The Clem Jones Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Bond University. Funding also went to successful voluntary assisted dying law reform around Australia. We hear a campaign for a direct election republic is next!

Clem Jones, Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 1961-1975,

WORKERS NEEDED

Tattersalls Club, aka the Queen St Workers Club, is feeling the pinch of staff shortages in the hospitality sector even putting out a call to members to see if their kids can lend a helping hand. Tatts chief executive Simon Proctor has asked any members with young adult children to consider them for casual work at the club.

“It could help them with a few extra dollars and it will provide a greater pool for the club to call on at this time, especially those with prior hospitality experience,” says Proctor, adding the club will need more staff especially in the final weeks before Christmas.

In Queensland alone there are currently 13,000 unfilled hospitality positions. Labour economist Shashi Karu predicts that, like the Spanish flu, which saw the introduction of sick leave, the Covid-19 pandemic will open a new chapter of reforms and benefits for the shift workers of the hospitality industry.

“We can expect a silver lining from Covid-19 to be the introduction of reforms to childcare, wages and job security,” he said.

“As the industry faces a worker shortage due to border closures, business owners will need to find ways to entice talent as competition will be fierce. The result of this will be shiftworkers having more bargaining power than previously seen in the industry.”