‘It didn’t make a single worker safer’: Red tape ripped up for Qld tradies

The Queensland government has promised less paperwork and fees – and more time – for up to 50,000 builders and tradespeople in its latest effort to reduce housing strain across the state.

Minister for Housing Sam O’Connor said the changes, most of which would come into effect in March, would reduce “unnecessary” financial paperwork for up to 97 per cent of small businesses and sole traders in the construction sector.

“We need to make sure that their regulatory system is fit for purpose,” he said.

Housing Minister Sam O’Connor said the changes would cut red tape for small businesses and sole traders in the construction and housing industry.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt

“It’s incredibly frustrating for people to have to deal with red tape and government regulation for no reason.”

Builders and sole traders who earn less than $800,000 each year would no longer have to submit annual financial reports, which the government said reflected their lower financial risk.

The state’s regulatory body, the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC), would maintain oversight of worksite and business standards, and some of its paperwork would be digitised.

“The steps that we’re announcing today will mean that … small operators will have less paperwork. It means more time on the job site for them,” O’Connor said.

“The reforms that we’re announcing around digitisation of the QBCC will mean they’re not having to fill in endless paper forms.”

O’Connor said the changes would make the construction sector more accessible, helping it attract more apprentices.

“We need people to see a trade as a career that they want to take up … and that these changes will make a difference. That is a massive part of it,” he said.

“The less complexities you have, and the more customer-friendly your regulator is, and your regulatory environment is, the more people want to take part in this.”

From March, trade workers would be given a five-year extension on meeting new requirements for passive fire protection licences, and plumbers certified for fire protection work would have their occupational licence fees scrapped.

While there was no firm timeline for digitising licensing and administrative processes, O’Connor said it was a priority to cut down “duplicative reports” – where builders would submit the same documentation to the QBCC and Workplace Health and Safety Queensland – blaming construction unions for the current system.

“The fact that for no reason you had to put the same report into two different government bodies, that was directly from the CFMEU,” he said.

“It didn’t make a single worker safer. It just is unnecessary.”

Parliament was set to return next week, and was expected to pass laws to re-establish a productivity commission, which would begin its work with a wide-ranging review of the building and construction sector.

“This productivity commission review, this bigger piece of work that we’ve got coming down the pipeline – we need to get that locked away,” O’Connor said.

“I’m hopeful we’ll have something from that in the next six or so months.”