Page 954 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 March 1991
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Mr Speaker, it would not be necessary to employ an army of bureaucrats to make improvements in this area. What we are proposing in, I hope, a constructive manner today - and I hope that the Minister will take some of these proposals on board as constructive suggestions, which is what they are - is a small audit team within Public Works, allied with a hot line.
The Hunt Boilers fiasco was a public works project that was using the project management technique. The project manager was supposed to be checking that people had been paid. It was clearly apparent that that technique had broken down. Subcontractors and suppliers would telephone either the project manager or the head contractor, Hunt Boilers, which, of course, was in an unusual position of effectively being the sole contractor under a project management technique while itself subbying the jobs. The subcontractors and suppliers were repeatedly calling both the project manager and the head contractor, saying that the payments had fallen behind; they were one month behind, two months behind, three months behind, in one case, I think, four months behind, but nothing happened. Cheques were still being paid across by the Government to the project manager and from the project manager to Hunt Boilers, the head contractor, right up until the time that Hunt Boilers abandoned the site and retreated to its Brisbane bunker.
Mr Speaker, that could have been avoided, or at the least could have been substantially ameliorated, if the Opposition's proposal had been adopted by the Government. A small audit team is needed, operating within Public Works, to regularly check the books of project managers and their contractors on a random basis to ensure that subbies and suppliers are being paid before each month's payment is passed across. That small audit unit - and we need to talk about only a couple of officers - would need a clearly identified hot line - and it would not take much to have that hot line clearly identified because the trade union movement in this Territory would provide your free advertising service. It would soon make sure that all of its members were aware of this complaints number. If that simple technique were adopted we could be in a situation where, if another collapse occurred, all that people would be out of pocket would be a month's payments.
The Opposition is not saying that this Government or any government can guarantee that there will never be a bankruptcy in the building industry. That is not in Mr Duby's power; that was not in Mrs Grassby's power. That will never be in the power of any Minister for Urban Services. But the Minister can take action to ensure that, if a collapse should occur, damage will be minimised. I am told by persons involved in the construction industry - by people in the union movement and by the large number of subcontractors and suppliers that I have come across as a result of dealing with the unions on the Hunt Boilers dispute - that this technique would be effective and would be a step in the right direction.
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