Real estate lobby blames high-paid union tradies for housing shortage in Queensland
Real estate lobby blames high-paid union tradies for housing shortage in Queensland
Queensland's real estate lobby says people are too afraid to point out that unions are driving up the cost of housing, but an economist says that while wage growth is a contributing factor, so too are growing material costs, labour shortages and excessive government regulations.
In short: The Real Estate Institute of Queensland says high-paying government projects are pushing up the cost of construction.
An economist says growing wages are a contributing factor, but growing material costs, labour shortages, and excessive government regulations are in the way of development.
What's next?: The government has vowed to build 55,000 social houses by the year 2046.
Crazy how the wealthiest people in society are all those over paid tradies
It's the unions, I knew it was them! Even when it was decades of government policy supporting housing as an investment vehicle, I knew it was them!
Some CFMEU union jobs pay massive salaries to... stand around and chat with your mates.
For example they just fixed a water leak under the footpath outside our office. It took about 3 months and there were often five workers standing around doing almost nothing at all for days at a time.
When I had a water leak at home, we didn't call a union construction company, we called a sole trader. It took one guy two hours to fix the leak, and he charged his "emergency work" rate, which I'm pretty sure was half the price a CFMEU company would have charged just to give us a quote for the job.
The only shining light in the housing affordability debate in Australia is when an economist gets the mic on something like Q&A and says the causes are juiced immigration and the tax code. But the other panellists invariably squirm, and the host obligingly steers the conversation back to a place where all the propagandists feel safe.
Wont somebody think of the poor, maligned billionaires??!
Unfortunately the building industry can't possibly survive without the unions and red tape.
The lack of compliance, on everything from worker safety to common sense things like "make sure this wall is actually strong enough to stay upright", is horrifically poor and would be so much worse if builders were given more freedom.
Excessive government regulations? Please. Those regulations are shit as that result in mould ridden dog boxes that can barely be considered liveable.
Material costs are rising because we barely manufacture our own here. It's all imported and we're girt by sea. Of course it'll be expensive. Bring manufacturing back en masse and we might see some relief on that part.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
High-paid union tradies are "largely" responsible for Queensland's worsening housing shortages, according to the state's peak real estate lobby.
Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) chief executive Antonia Mercorella said unions were driving up housing costs but people were too afraid to point it out.
Ms Mercorella said she supported the idea of building more social houses in principle, but in practice there were steep barriers to boosting supply.
Ms Mercorella said these failed to address the "elephant in the room" of low housing supply exacerbated by tradies with high wage expectations.
CFMEU Queensland Northern Territory state secretary Michael Ravbar said Ms Mercorella's "outburst" was proof of how out of touch she was with the construction industry.
They, like thousands of other Queenslanders, suffer at the hands of predatory real estate agents who always put profits ahead of people."
The original article contains 412 words, the summary contains 139 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!