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Queensland’s new LNP administration is keeping with its theme this week of turning over Labor’s rocks to reveal what it claimed were hidden cost increases.
Citing modelling said to have been initiated by Labor while in government, Public Works Minister Sam O’Connor claimed various procurement policies for government projects could harm housing affordability.
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This could be to the tune of 22,000 fewer homes across the next five years, and 7 per cent higher rents, O’Connor said.
Dubbed Best Practice Industry Conditions, the policies were pitched as efforts to collate and set prevailing pay and conditions to ensure the state was setting the standard.
However, some of the conditions have been criticised as too union-friendly, driving related and unsubstantiated claims of a “CFMEU tax” lifting construction costs by 30 per cent.
The policies were also causing a “flow-on impact” into the residential construction sector, O’Connor said the modelling showed.
“We are actively looking at what options we have to urgently make sure that productivity returns to job sites across Queensland,” he said, reiterating comments that Queensland was the “strike capital of the country”.
Speaking earlier on ABC Radio Brisbane, deputy opposition leader Cameron Dick claimed the only way the LNP government could save money was by cutting wages and conditions.
Premier David Crisafulli has vowed to re-establish a state productivity commission – with an initial probe into the building sector.