Opening Statement – Senate Select Committee on Productivity

Event: Senate Select Committee on Productivity

Date: 29 June 2026
Speaker: Melissa Byrne, Master Builders Australia National Director of Policy and Legal

Opening Statement

E&OE

Thank you Chair and Senators for the opportunity to appear today.

One of the key contributors to our sector’s poor productivity is an unbalanced industrial relations environment.

Recent investigations and the Queensland Commission of Inquiry have brought to light conduct that many builders have been blowing the whistle on for decades.

My colleague can provide further insight into the Queensland Inquiry, but the broader lesson is clear: unlawful behaviour, poor procurement frameworks, and excessive industrial interference undermine productivity, increase costs and do not deliver safer worksites.

This comes at a time when construction productivity continues to go backwards.

• Over the past decade, no industry has recorded a worse productivity performance than construction
• Our productivity is 21 per cent lower than it was just over a decade ago, representing seven consecutive years of decline
• Completing a new apartment now takes 33 months – a decade ago it would only take 21 months
• Likewise, a typical detached house now takes 11.5 months as opposed to 8.6
• The final cost of road and bridge projects is 36.8 per cent higher than ten years ago.

The productivity decline is not because builders, subcontractors and workers are doing less. Across Australia they continue to deliver more homes, more infrastructure and more commercial projects under increasingly difficult regulatory conditions.

Restrictive enterprise agreement provisions and unlawful conduct continue to drag productivity backwards.

The conduct exposed within the CFMEU demonstrates the need for lasting national reform.

When it comes to how this reduced productivity, we need only look at the former Queensland Government’s BPIC policy, which largely mirrored CFMEU backed Enterprise Agreements. Analysis shows that up to 96 working days were lost in a calendar year because of that policy.

Enough is enough. The Administration of the CFMEU was an important first step, but it cannot be the last. Long-term lasting reform is needed to ensure history does not repeat itself once again when the administration period ends.

Master Builders is calling for practical reforms, including:

• the administration continuing for the full five years and beyond, if required
• stronger witness protections,
• the removal of productivity-sapping enterprise agreement provisions,
• tougher action against anti-competitive conduct,
• stronger fit-and-proper-person requirements for officials, and
• the establishment of a dedicated industry regulator with the powers and resources to uphold lawful conduct across the sector.

These form part of our six-point plan to end corruption in the sector.

This is where government attention should remain focused. We are also concerned that recent changes to federal procurement settings risks embedding arrangements that could facilitate similar conduct in other industries.

The focus of the Federal Government must now be on implementing reforms that improve productivity, strengthen accountability, and restore confidence in one of Australia’s most important industries.

Media contact: Dylan Hafey, Adviser, Media & Government Relations

0497 330 064 | dylan.hafey@masterbuilders.com.au