Queensland’s construction industry is facing a perfect storm of challenges as it works to deliver major infrastructure builds to support the Brisbane 2032 Games and thousands of new homes to end the housing crisis.
An Interim Report from the Queensland Productivity Commission into Opportunities to Improve Productivity of the Construction Industry found that productivity in sector had fallen nine percent since 2018.
Queensland Productivity Commissioner Angela Moody said had productivity remained the same, 77,000 extra dwellings could have been built since 2018.
Ms Moody said the Interim Report found that the state’s construction industry faced multiple challenges including constrained supply chains, availability of capital, legislative and policy changes, investment priorities, timeframes and changing demographics.
“Generally, one or two issues can be managed by consumers, industry and/or government,” she said.
“In the case of the current Queensland construction industry, several of these factors have become or are long-standing intractable issues. Moreover, what makes the current environment notable is that almost all these factors are occurring at the same time.”
Ms Moody said if Queensland was to meet its housing and infrastructure needs, productivity across the industry would need to improve.
“Although there are solutions, the pathway to better productivity will not be easy or immediate. There are no silver bullets, and improving matters will take concerted effort to restore confidence and enable investment in the housing and other infrastructure we need.”
She said the Interim Report proposed a reform program to improve productivity across the industry, with 21 preliminary recommendations made and 12 directions for reform identified, focused on four key areas:
- Reforming government procurement: There are opportunities to rationalise the current suite of Queensland Government procurement policies, including through the permanent removal of the Best Practice Industry Conditions, and to improve project selection, sequencing and contracting.
- Improving land use regulation: There are opportunities to improve the operation of the housing market by reducing unnecessary regulation of building form, streamlining approvals processes and undertaking reforms to increase opportunities for development, with a focus on increasing density.
- Improving the regulation of building activity: There are opportunities to improve regulation under the National Construction Code, financial regulations and the operation of workplace health and safety regulation, as well as removing regulatory barriers to modern methods of construction.
- Improving labour market operation: Given labour market shortages across the economy, it will be challenging to increase the construction labour force. However, there are opportunities to improve its operation through reforms to occupational licensing and reconsidering the requirement for labour hire licensing.
Read the interim report: Construction Productivity.
