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taking away workers rights — for developers "to get a backbone" and start building shonky apartment blocks...

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The Morrison government must be thanking its lucky stars for John Setka.

Who would it point to in order to stir support for the latest tranche of proposed anti-union legislation, were it not for Setka?

Perhaps underpaid teachers. Or workers in understaffed aged care facilities. Nurses? The teenagers who serve at McDonald’s?

In his speech introducing the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019 into parliament, Christian Porter – who is both attorney-general and minister for industrial relations – referred expansively to “organisations” that “have nothing but contempt for the law”, but mentioned only one by name. That was Setka’s – the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU).

And Porter spoke about its “repeated law-breaking” at some length.

“As recently as last month,” he said, “the CFMMEU and its officers faced another fine of over $100,000 for unlawful entries and threats on construction sites. That decision saw them top $4 million worth of court-ordered penalties for the 2018-19 financial year alone.

“In fact, the CFMMEU’s behaviour has been so poor for so long that in 2017, one Federal Court judge described that union as ‘the most recidivist corporate offender in Australian history’. It seems, sadly, little has changed.

“That is why the government is committed to passing this vital legislation, which will take a significant step towards curbing the behaviour we have seen threaten the rule of the law in Australian workplaces,” said Porter.

That was on July 4, and in the weeks since, Porter and others in the government have taken every opportunity to refer to the record of the union, and of Setka in particular. A number of Coalition members have used identical words. On Monday, Nicolle Flint, the Liberal member for Boothby, said:

“John Setka has, to this point, amassed around 59 court convictions for a multitude of offences, including assault police, five times; assault by kicking, five times; wilful trespass, seven times; resisting arrest, five times; theft, attempted theft by deception and intent to coerce, nine times; and coercion, 10 times.”

Setka and the union are no doubt tough nuts, and the government insists it needs tough new measures to crack them.

The proposed laws would not only make it easier for the courts to remove union officials who, as Porter puts it, “flout the law”. They would also make it easier to deregister entire unions or parts of unions that act unlawfully, and for courts to appoint administrators, in cases where “the organisation or part of the organisation has ceased to function effectively”. And they would give the Fair Work Commission the power to veto union amalgamations if they were deemed not to be in the public interest – if, for example, the amalgamating entities had bad records of compliance with the law.

And if you were only considering these proposed changes by reference to Setka and his crew, you might think “fair enough”.

Certainly, Jacqui Lambie, Tasmanian independent and a crucial senate vote, is tempted to think that way. Last week, she told Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Michele O’Neil: “you got a problem with the IR bill and it’s called John Setka”. She subsequently told The Sydney Morning Herald that “every day” that Setka continues to hold his job does more harm to the union movement and makes it more likely she will vote with the government.

Setka shows no signs of going – from either the Labor Party, which wants to expel him, or the union. He is fighting the party through the courts, and has won the backing of his members, despite the urging of the ACTU that he should go for the good of the movement.

And that suits the government, which clearly would rather Lambie and other members of the senate crossbench focus on the hard case of Setka, rather than the broader reality, which is that most unions are not like the CFMMEU.

UNIONS HAVE BEEN SIGNIFICANTLY WEAKENED, WITH MEMBERSHIP NOW DOWN TO ABOUT 14.7 PER CENT OF THE WORKFORCE AND ONLY 10 PER CENT IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR, SAYS ANTHONY FORSYTH, ALTHOUGH THEY MAINTAIN SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCE IN SOME SECTORS.

As Labor’s industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke put it in his speech on the bill this week, much as the government might seek to characterise the average union member as “a bloke … involved in a blue-collar industry, who gets into lots of fights … the typical union member these days is a woman in aged care.”

Nor, says Dr Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute, are they at all militant. The number of days lost to industrial action has been in steady decline for the past several decades, and now is down more than 95 per cent compared with levels of the 1970s and ’80s. The number of workers involved in disputes is down, and so is the number of working days lost.

“Interestingly, major and long-lasting lockouts (like the 742-day lockout at Esso Longford) make up a growing share of total days lost in work stoppages,” says Stanford. He also notes a “clear correlation” between the historically low levels of employee-initiated industrial action over the past six years with historically low wage growth.

Stanford points to the government’s latest “Trends in Federal Enterprise Bargaining” report, released this week by the Attorney-General’s Department, as confirmation of the weakened position of unions.

 

Read more:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2019/08/03/coalition-b...

 

 

 

Cartoon at top by Clement, AFR, Friday 20 June 2014...

new and old cracks in the industry...

The cracks first appeared in the buildings. Now they have begun to spread across the industry.

The collapse of two high-rise apartment developers — the Sydney-based Ralan Group and Melbourne's Stellar Group — within the past month has ignited the property industry's worst fears: that large numbers of would-be buyers either are unable or unwilling to settle on pre-sold apartments.

Lured by the prospect of easy profits in a booming market, property investors snapped up units off the plan, armed with a small deposit and in many cases a non-binding assurance from a financier, usually a bank.

But the property downturn in the past two years has seen sharp falls in apartment prices in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, adding to the already depressed markets in Perth and Darwin.

Off-the-plan buyers in a sticky situation

That's put many would-be investors under water, left holding agreements to pay boomtime prices, usually well above the current market rate.

And that's when things get sticky.

That agreement with the bank was never a guarantee. It wasn't even a promise.

While the bank may lend money, often it will only be for a reduced amount, leaving the buyer scrambling to raise the extra cash to buy an overvalued apartment.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-01/construction-industry-cracks-show...

 

And back in 2016...

 

HE’S jumped from bankruptcy into spearheading five major developments but developer Larry Matthews has refused to fix work that has left a modern building crumbling. 

The Gold Coast builder filed for bankruptcy in 2012 when his biggest lender asked him to pay back a $60 million loan and the state’s building watchdog ordered him to make dozens of repairs to a leaking, crumbling building on Miami Key, Broadbeach.

As of November, Mr Matthews became solvent and is backing major developments across Queensland — including the 255-unit Waterford Apartment project in Bundall.

Mr Matthews’ return has infuriated one of the Coast’s oldest ASX-listed companies, Icon Energy, which has been trying to get him to repair work on their Broadbeach building for years.

“They can’t get anything from me,” Mr Matthews told the Bulletin this week.

 

Read more:

https://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/business/gold-coast-developer-goes-...

 

 

welcome back to the opal tower...

It was not the welcome Opal Tower resident Andre was hoping for.

Key points:
  • A trickle of residents moved back into Opal Tower on Friday — seven months after being evacuated
  • Some complained of problems in the building and communication issues, but Icon, the builder, said its approach has been "exemplary" 
  • Icon said 353 of the building's 392 apartments were now ready for re-occupation

 

After seven months of living out of a suitcase, the 28th-floor apartment owner finally received the keys to move back into his western Sydney home yesterday. 

But inside, one critical thing was missing. 

"I went into the apartment and the water wasn't working," Andre, who did not want his surname used, told the ABC.

"It wasn't great. They said they'd turn it on later today.

"So I'm going for a bike ride." 

Andre was one of a handful of residents handed back the keys to their apartments yesterday after being evacuated from the Opal Tower building on Christmas Eve — and again days later — after residents reported large cracks in its foundations.

The incident sparked a nightmare scenario for the residents, with most living in-and-out of various hotels and temporary accommodation as the builder, Icon, carried out complicated rectification works. 

This week the ABC revealed owners are seeking millions of dollars in compensation from the State Government in a class-action lawsuit, which could include Icon in cross-claims.

Owners are claiming a "breach of warranty" and that the $170 million apartment complex was not built with "due care and skill". The ABC understands the response to the class action from residents has been strong.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-03/opal-tower-apartments-moving-day-...

 

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smugmo...

banksters

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dodgy inspector of dodgy buildings...

The private building certifier who has been fined more than any other in NSW was among the people "primarily responsible" for privatising the supervision of building standards in the 1980s and 90s.

Lyall Dix has been fined more than $88,000 by the Building Professionals Board following a dozen complaints about his role as a certifier, including that he "failed to adequately inspect" buildings, and "exercise reasonable care and attention" as the principal certifying authority.

The Herald revealed earlier this month that Mr Dix lost his accreditation and was disqualified from being a certifier for five years in 2012, but back in the 1980s, he was the head of the building branch of the NSW Department of Local Government.

This department was "zealous in its enthusiasm to break local government’s monopoly" on building controls, Development and Environmental Professionals’ Association (DEPA) Secretary Ian Robertson, said.

DEPA is the local government union covering building surveyors, certifiers, planners, environmental specialists and others.

"Lyall Dix was the person primarily responsible for introducing private certification options in the Local Government Act in 1989, " Mr Robertson, who has worked with DEPA since 1984, said.

"The process managed by the Building Branch in the lead up to the legislation was disgraceful. Local government bodies representing councils as well as employees who were building surveyors were never consulted."

Private-sector certification began in 1998 but instead of simplifying the planning approval and building certification process, the change has "undoubtedly made it more complex, more expensive, more litigious and less credible and reliable", Waverley, Randwick and Woollahra councils wrote in their submission to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the regulation of building standards.

The Property Council of Australia said private certification was introduced due to corruption by officers in local government, such as in Ryde where a certifier took money from a builder.

"The NSW Government needs to increase their auditing and governance of building certifiers to identify and eliminate any sub-standard operators," the property council said.

Brett Daintry, a town planner, surveyor, and former chair of the NSW Building Professional Board (BPB) disciplinary committee said that the BPB was "always under-resourced" for the task of regulating private certifiers.

“Private certification has to go," Mr Daintry said. "There have been hundreds of Act and Regulation changes to prop this system up, trying to make it work, and it remains, on any reasonable observation, a failure.”

Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors CEO Grant Warner said in a submission to the inquiry that "unqualified individuals are undertaking inspections without the required knowledge, experience and/or credentials".

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/state-s-most-fined-certifier-behind-...

 

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