Let’s get this straight: did Donald Trump just win the last election or was it Jim Jones come back from the dead in disguise – hoping to expand his cult of 900 people who drank poisoned Kool-Aid at his behest?
The US is brilliant at cults. But Australia isn’t. Let’s try to remember that, Mr Peter Dutton, and all the premiers, National Party leaders, bureaucrats and would be dictators (for a day or more).
Yet not two weeks has gone by and already there are bits of Australia that look like falling into line, waiting for the Kool-Aid Kid to show them what to do.
Already National Party pollies are agitating that Australia should get out of the Paris Agreement on climate, Amanda McKenzie, chief executive of the Climate Council told her members early this week.
The answer, she said was to “stay strong and carry on.”
But there’s a flip side. And that’s the clean energy sector that will get ever more powerful thanks to the value and promise it offers.
Even energy efficiency technology is hot. This previously dull sector of the sustainability revolution might lack the glitz of solar panels in the sun, but the ka-ching of savings landing in the bank account is music to the ears.
“Trump or no Trump, the world is moving faster than ever to shift away from fossil fuels, building out renewable energy, storage, and other clean solutions,” said McKenzie. And driving them is the financial rewards that even Trump can’t dump.
Nope, parts of our revolution/evolution are safe.
The bigger danger is we lose on sustainability.
It is not safe. People of diversity are not safe. Nothing is safe.
Already this week there were people on radio from the US hugely concerned that that the promise to excise the US government by two thirds – with Elon Musk in charge – is the quick way to slash so-called red tape. That is, the “red tape” that protects our water, our air, said the American. They might have added, the red tape that protects us from the chemical poisons killing even more of us than they do already.
In Australia the move to slashing regulations is already on.
The bookies had Trump winning handsomely and it’s possible that even before the election some of our pollies were tapped into their mainframes because they were already riding the wave of rollback. In the National Construction Code, in the building reforms and now in Queensland on the protections and awards for workers in government construction contracts because they’re seen as providing an unfair advantage in the war for skilled trades.
Yep. Fresh off the cyber press on Thursday was an announcement from the Australian Constructors Association that the new conservative Crisafulli government in Queensland had pulled the pin on annoying rules for workers on government sites that gave them a better deal than the private sector could.
Unfair the industry had been calling with one voice, apparently, saying it was this that had added to rising house prices in recent times. (And the reason for rising prices in the rest of the developed world were…?)
Among the so called sweetheart deals were conditions that said workers could walk off the job when temperatures reached 35 degrees Celsius and that they could get higher pay if it rained.
There were also sweeteners like extra days off. The deal was contained in the Best Practice Industry Conditions.
Best practice?
The words say it all, apparently. Who can afford best practice when housing is in crisis and productivity in construction is falling way behind manufacturing.
But doesn’t manufacturing use the best technology and machinery it can get its hands on, while we’re still building houses the way we did in Roman times?
Chief executive of the ACA Jon Davies broadly agreed with The Fifth Estate in a phone conversation on Thursday afternoon and added that offsite manufacturing was to be championed.
The removal of the BPIC would come in gradually, replaced by new enterprise bargaining agreements on a site by site basis when existing ones expired.
And of course these would be negotiated by both sides and reasonable. It was not a way to dumb down safety provisions for workers.
Hmmm, we asked what were the reasonable temperature and humidity levels that signalled time to down tools? This depended on a number of things, he answered, such as where the temperature and humidity gauges were placed or if fans could be used for cooling – before speculating on how many fans it might be practical to install in a given site.
Well, we know there’s been some issues with builders lately but the dumping of the BPIC that the ACA was celebrating is essentially about making the private sector more competitive for labour, so that the private sector could get on with the projects that needed to house Queenslanders, Davies said.
The government with its infrastructure needs and nicer than usual working conditions was annoyingly a bit too attractive – especially with metropolitan jobs.
What to do? Get rid of BPIC and bring back the Queensland Productivity Commission apparently, which is also happening. One bright spark said Crisafulli is starting to look like the new Campbell Newman (who lasted just one term; as Trump will do – but you can roll out fundamental change in just one term. Whitlam did it. And isn’t it interesting the way the radical right these days is mimicking and learning from the radical left?)
Sigh…here we go again. It looks like governments are once again “bending over backwards” to remove as many guard rails as possible so the private sector can get on with what it does best – making profits and hoping for the trickle down effect.
Let’s be fair to the ACA though – Davies was at pains to point out his members want to be reasonable, to get everyone on the same page and working collectively instead at competitively (at six paces), and that’s something to aim for.
Better productivity in off site or modern methods of construction (MMC) is absolutely to be desired and as Davies agreed, is a big shining hope. It’s flawed of course. Like every iteration of a new thing riven with early fails, but what choice do we have? We need to do what Amanda McKenzie said: be strong and carry on.
Besides the planet is melting and our natural resources are becoming like precious gems that need to be loved and conserved. MMC can do that…sort of…as long as we keep as much building fabric as we already have.
New fund to help
Right on cue, also on Thursday, the Feds announced nearly $1 billion for a new National Productivity Fund.
According to Mathew Aitchison who is CEO of the Building 4.0 Cooperative Research Centre, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has “cut to the core of the problem plaguing our construction industry calling out the decades of productivity decline” by focusing on the manufacturing sector as a way to save our building sector.
There’s no doubt it needs saving.
Aitchison said MMC was the way to go. “Slavish adherence to the old the ways of building have landed us in this mess; we are in the midst of a massive market failure and declining productivity that began over 50 years ago.”
MMC can shave 20 per cent off costs up front, he says, and it can attract a more diverse workforce, which would be most welcome in this labour-scarce market.
And those who read The Fifth Estate closely will also remember that the New South Wales Productivity Commission also revealed another way to save on the cost of building apartment – oh, maybe another 20 per cent or so – by clearly showing us the profit margins required by developers, the financiers and marketing agents.
Governments could ostensibly pocket those margins for the public purse – or even better don’t take them at all. (And we’re open to bean counters showing us precise numbers here.)
Here’s what the ABC said BIP included:
- $100 a week if a worker has to use their own mobile phone or tablet
- Double time when it rains
- Workers can down tools if the air temperature reaches 35 degrees Celsius, or 29C and 75 per cent humidity after three hours from the start of a shift
- 300 per cent the hourly rate for working over Easter and Christmas
- Up to $100 a day for workers who live more than 50 kilometres from the site
- Metal and engineering workers get double time and a half if they work through their annual metal and engineering picnic day
- A five per cent pay rise every year until the end of the agreement in 2027
- 26 rostered days to be taken off for every 12 months’ continuous service
But hey, who needs to attract workers from the private sector for infrastructure work? (even when there’s an Olympics on the way.) Let’s build houses privately and cream that nice 20 per cent – or more!