Brisbane commercial building productivity by organised crime, bikies and radical union officials

David Crisafulli, with the official Premiers Portfolio of in coming government briefs. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

New Queensland Premier David Crisafulli’s most difficult task will be to prepare Brisbane for the 2032 Olympics. Since winning the games in 202, the Brisbane commercial building industry has been invaded by a combination of organised crime, bikies and radical union officials, which has lowered productivity by about one third.

Add that to dramatic wage rises and exploding costs of materials, and the costs of producing a world-class Olympic Stadium and other facilities in Brisbane will be double or treble early estimates.

In the previous decade (when the bid was being prepared) Brisbane was the most efficient Australian capital city to build major commercial structures because it combined an efficient building approval system with good work practices.

Although productivity was already falling in 2021, the cost horror of what was about to take place thanks to “an invasion” of highly skilled disrupters from down south was not understood.

Brisbane was particularly vulnerable to the invasion because its site managers were not experienced in handling personal threats and disruptive tactics that carried huge costs to projects.

The low productivity agreements that were signed as a result included weather condition clauses whereby workers were able to come on site at, say, 7am when the weather conditions allowed building but go home some hours later when temperatures and/or other weather conditions reached the halt work trigger point. The workers received a full day’s pay.

Coal revenue has always been at the base of Queensland’s prosperity, and Crisafulli will need a strong increase in coal revenues to fund the Olympics along with his other promises. The alternative will be to go down the Victorian high debt disaster route.

In theory, the federal government’s decision to put the CFMEU under administration might save the Queensland economy.

But given that many of the productivity disrupters in the Brisbane building industry came up from Victoria to enjoy the easy pickings available in the northern capital, it will be instructive to see how bikies and organised crime figures are adapting to the new union administration in Victoria.

Stephen Drill and Anthony Dowsley report in the Melbourne Herald Sun that it is “business as usual”, with threats and intimidation continuing on construction sites despite the union being placed into the hands of administrator Mark Irving, KC.

Drill and Dowsley discovered that CFMEU delegates with bikie links who were sacked by the CFMEU have sometimes simply turned up on the same site as labourers.

Most bikies never left. They had a few weeks off on paid leave and are now back. A bikie turned up on a site recently and was demanding a $200,000 pay rate.

The Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police, corruption watchdog IBAC, the Fair Work Ombudsman and a Victorian Government inquiry have ongoing investigations, but key construction industry players say “nothing has changed”.

I would add to the Herald Sun report that Brisbane remains particularly vulnerable because its site managers still fear the threats and intimidation that come when organised crime takes over a building site.

Unless Crisafulli is able to declare some form of emergency that works, or if the Commonwealth (perhaps under a Coalition government) is prepared to move to the edge of its constitutional powers, then Queensland faces truly monumental outlays to hold the Olympics.

Back in July, I along with others, pointed out that Brisbane and the Gold Coast had become the most expensive places to build large constructions in Australia.

The exorbitant cost of building in Brisbane has already caused the Olympics project to be scaled down, and sadly it looks very much like being a “poor person’s” Olympics.

The original idea was to revamp the Gabba as a centrepiece. The rough early cost estimate was $1bn, which may have been too low even in the lower-cost times.

CFMEU work practices helped increase that estimate to $2.7bn. But, the $2.7bn did not go far enough, and the real cost is probably closer to $5bn. The past government switched to other ideas.

One alternative was a new stadium, with an estimated cost of $3.4bn. Again, the likely real cost under CFMEU rules could be at least double and might hit $10bn.

So the government went back to the 1981 Commonwealth Games stadium with some temporary renovations and a train line. Although the billions spent on the stadium would be dismantled, it might be possible to control the costs. No decision has been made.

Around Australia, the abundant riches of the CFMEU have become the money powerhouse which helps fund the left wing of the ALP, which controls most ALP governments. It was a big step by Anthony Albanese to dismantle it.

While the Olympics is the most public disaster caused by the slump in productivity, it also impacts constructing high towers to overcome the housing shortages.

Low productivity and huge wages on commercial buildings means the cost of building new residential high rise towers makes them unaffordable in Melbourne and Brisbane.

In Sydney, Meriton has been able to maintain good work practices while richly rewarding workers. In the harbour city, it is the approval bureaucracy that is crippling building in the city.