Queensland Building and Construction Commission fails to prosecute or fine anyone for defective works in five years

Queensland’s building watchdog has issued 3400 orders to repair defective work over the past five years but not a single tradie or company was held to account or made to pay a penalty.

Nearly 3400 orders to rectify structurally defective building works were handed out by Queensland’s building industry watchdog over the past five financial years.

Yet none of that dodgy and potentially dangerous construction resulted in prosecutions or fines.

Not a single tradie or company was held to account, or made to pay a penalty, for actions which could have possibly resulted in injury or even death to consumers.

Similarly, despite numerous well-publicized cases, no contractors have been prosecuted for avoiding their legal obligations to consumers and sub-contractors in the last five years.

The shocking lack of oversight is among numerous examples uncovered by whistleblowers and other stakeholders unnerved at the chronic under-performance of the embattled Queensland Building and Construction Commission.

Critics say the lack of action is even more egregious since the QBCC’s staffing numbers have swelled 33 per cent since 2016, while the agency’s total income has surged 28 per cent to $303.3m in that time.

“The reason for this lack of action is a failure at a strategic level to direct operational resources where they are most likely to have maximum regulatory impact and shape positive industry behaviour,’’ one former senior QBCC executive said.

Public Works and Procurement Minister Mick de Brenni.

The harsh criticism comes on the eve of the release of a highly-anticipated report by former bureaucrat Dr Jim Varghese, who many hope will recommend much-needed reforms to overhaul the operation of the QBCC. The report landed last month but has remained under wraps since then.

A QBCC spokesman defended the regulatory agency this week, claiming it “leads the nation’’ in oversight. He noted that the majority of matters investigated are dealt with by warnings or penalty infringement notices.

Records show it handed out 1148 penalty infringement notices in the last financial year, the most since 2015-16.

But the most recent annual report reveals that the bulk of the $8.5m set to be collected never materialized. It shows that $7.2m of that amount, or 84 per cent, was written off as “expected credit losses’’.

In addition, the QBCC dropped 97 per cent of the cases when licensees chose to fight the notices in court. It pursued just seven of the 265 people who lodged legal appeals since 2017.

Records also reveal the regulatory agency investigated 2999 licensees over the past two years and determined that they had committed offences under the QBCC Act.

Yet fewer than 1 per cent, or just 26 cases, were eventually prosecuted or subject to disciplinary action, according to figures released by the QBCC in response to a question on notice in Parliament.

The regulator relies heavily on issuing “warning notices’’ to alleged offenders, handing out 586 of them in the last financial year

But, according to former top executives, there’s no provision for this action in the QBCC Act, raising questions about both their legality and effectiveness.

Taken together, one recently-departed insider said all these oversight failures show the QBCC “appears to be engaging in practices that are inconsistent with its principal purpose of protecting the community and industry from unlawful or incompetent building practitioners’’.

Shadow Minister for Housing and Public Works Tim Mander.

The QBCC spokesman said there were numerous reasons for the extremely low number of prosecutions, as well as very few challenges to appeals.

“Reasons why contested infringement notices may not result in a prosecution can include other legal matters, such as appeals in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal,’’ he said.

“Other relevant circumstances may include unwillingness of a witness to assist the QBCC, expiry of statutory time limitations, or liquidation of an entity.’’

That doesn’t wash with Tim Mander, the shadow Minister for Housing and Public Works who slammed the “ongoing dysfunction’’ inside the agency.

“Despite increasing staff numbers by a third over the last five years, the QBCC is failing to perform its major purpose - protecting homeowners from dodgy builders,’’ Mr Mander said this week.

“It beggars belief that out of thousands of detected defects, not one has led to a penalty to a dodgy builder or tradesperson. The findings of the Varghese review into the QBCC can’t come quickly enough.’’

A spokesman for Public Works and Procurement Minister Mick de Brenni, whose portfolio includes the QBCC, declined to comment. “We’ll leave operational matters to the regulator,’’ he said.

By way of comparison, Victoria’s building regulator prosecuted 60 cases and launched 98 show cause notices for disciplinary action, according to the most recently available data from 2019-20.