, is pushing it to follow through with its election promise to improve payment protections for subcontractors, who are often left unpaid when a builder goes under.
“At the end of day, we say the money they’ve received belongs to the contractors,” said Oliver Judd, chief executive of the National Electrical and Communications Association, an industry group.It is a big concern for electrical contractors and others in what’s known as the “fitout trades”.
In construction and infrastructure industries with a wide range of contracts and relationships, views vary., and say it shouldn’t be included in discussion at the forum, likely to meet in the first or second quarters of next year. Unions say that fixing protections from the bottom up would put pressure throughout the chain for better recognition and sharing of risks.“The ACA and others may say we need to talk about liquidity of the industry,” Electrical Trades Union acting secretary Michael Wright said.
“It breaks pari passu, which is meant to be a fundamental part of an insolvency – all unsecured creditors get paid the same split of what’s left,” said John Winter, the chief executive of Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association.Subcontractors shouldn’t be seen as creditors, NECA’s Mr Judd said.“The client has paid the builder and the builder is effectively holding money for work that’s been done,” he said.