Election 2022: Business weighs in on construction stoush

Business groups have thrown their weight behind Master Builders’ campaign against Labor’s plan to scrap the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

The head of the building industry union branded the construction watchdog as a ‘hopelessly biased regulator’. Picture: Brendan Radke

Business groups have thrown their weight behind the Master Builders’ campaign against Labor’s plan to scrap the ­Australian Building and Construction Commission, even as the building industry union lashed the watchdog as “a hopelessly biased regulator”.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said the regulator was there to ensure worksites were “free from intimidation and bullying”.

“We support the ABCC as a crucial safeguard to the integrity of our workplaces,” Ms Westacott said on Monday.

“Businesses and workers need an environment free from intimidation and bullying so they can work out how to make an enterprise stronger and deliver the best outcome for everyone at the table.”

Jon Davies, the chief executive of the Australian Constructors Association that represents leading construction and infrastructure contracting companies, said “a functional, respectful, safe and productive ­industry is essential to achieve the enormous pipeline of work ahead”.

Mr Davies said “this requires responsible industry stakeholders to work productively with each other in a safe and lawful way, and the ABCC performs an important role in achieving this”.

Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union national construction ­secretary Dave Noonan branded the ABCC s “failed regulator” that had helped the “big developers” to suppress workers wages and conditions. “The ABCC is a hopelessly biased regulator that relentlessly pursues construction workers for sticking up for their rights and seeking their entitlements while running a protection racket for dodgy bosses who steal their wages and put their lives at risk,” Mr Noonan said.

“The MBA’s love for the ABCC, a failed regulator that ignores rampant wage theft and which has not prosecuted a single case of sham contracting in an ­industry where it is rife, comes as no surprise.”

The ABCC was created under Liberal prime minister John Howard in 2005, scrapped under Labor’s Julia Gillard in 2012, and then reinstated under the Liberals’ Tony Abbott in 2016.

Master Builders has released analysis showing the number of working hours lost to industrial disputes spiked during the period the ABCC was abolished, and has trended lower since 2016.

With the opposition favourite to win the upcoming election, the building industry on Monday released advertisements that em­ph­a­sised the importance of the sector, saying each dollar spent in construction “means three dollars for the economic recovery”.

“Don’t let construction union bullies put this at risk”, the Master Builders ads state.

“Tell Labor to keep the construction watchdog.”

ABCC commissioner Stephen McBurney recently told media that lawlessness on work sites would increase sharply were the regulator to be shut down.