Editorial: QBCC ads can’t gloss over issues
When former senior public servant Jim Varghese pens his report into the problems at the QBCC, there should be serious recommendations for total, unequivocable reform, writes The Editor.
Opinion
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When former top Beattie government bureaucrat Jim Varghese pens his report into the problems at the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, there should be serious recommendations for total, unequivocable reform.
Make no mistake, this is a statutory body in crisis, having lost its best and brightest people over the past few years to dysfunctionality that starts and ends at the top – through the board and the minister responsible, Mick de Brenni.
The LNP has accused Mr de Brenni of “stacking the QBCC board with his union masters”, tearing up small operators’ fire protection licences, a lack of transparency and intervening in QBCC operations.
They have accused Mr de Brenni of misleading parliament, a claim he denies. The board has been complicit in these failures, say whistleblowers.
Now, as we reveal today, the QBCC is spending $1m and using stars from The Block TV series to tell Queenslanders how well it is performing.
Surely that money would have been much better spent after the Varghese report was finalised, and more presciently, after his recommendations had been enacted and resulted in change.
As LNP spokesman Michael Hart said, you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. Therein lies one of the big, unspoken deficiencies facing the Palaszczuk government. They seem in denial about the problems that constantly become public after frustrations from former or current employees.
It is all very well to get former corruption buster Tony Fitzgerald to look into the Crime and Corruption Commission. It is also timely to get former QUT vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake to look into the dysfunctionality and politicisation of the public service.
It is also good that Mr Varghese is looking at why the QBCC has let down its main constituency, its hardworking members, and many people who have been wronged by poor QBCC decision-making.
But it is now incumbent upon the government to act and sort these issues out, once and for all.
The QBCC board is living in an alternate reality if it thinks negative media coverage can be erased through glitzy PR and marketing campaigns.
That $1m – derived from member fees – would have been better spent once the QBCC had fixed its own backyard.
Queensland businesses already smashed by the Covid-19 pandemic and recent floods will be furious over the QBCC’s decision to spend $1m on the glossy new campaign.
The Sub-Contractors Alliance, which represent subbies who are members of the QBCC, says Mr Varghese must be bold and courageous in his final recommendations, due out later in the year.
It says the current board must go and the Home Warranty Scheme must be reformed.
It also says the QBCC must not adjudicate on builders’ disputes.
Mr Varghese has an unenviable job. It is never easy breaking the culture of a government instrumentality. But the many thousands of people who have been caught up in poor QBCC decision-making deserve action.
This latest attempt at glossing over major deficiencies at the QBCC, and painting a public persona that everything is OK, is a poor reflection on the board and ample proof that it is out of touch and needs to go.
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