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Speaker 1: As I said just before the break, it seems trade ees.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you hear about tradees and others being blacklisted

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Speaker 1: by organizations because of whatever. They're not paying their bills

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Speaker 1: in time and all the rest. Well, it seems tradees

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Speaker 1: are doing that to housing essay because they're not getting

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Speaker 1: paid in any form on time. And so when housing

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Speaker 1: essays say you've done work for us before, we need

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Speaker 1: you to go over here and quote us on this,

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Speaker 1: they say no, because I'm still waiting for you to

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Speaker 1: pay last time. Let's have a chat with Wade. He's

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Speaker 1: somebody who's owed money by the state government. It's unreal

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Speaker 1: as to the government wants all this work done. We've

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Speaker 1: got these houses, they keep telling us. And you'll write

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Speaker 1: in and say down the street there's a housing Trust

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Speaker 1: property that's been vacant for nine months, a year and

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Speaker 1: a half, whatever it is, and the government will say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we can't get trade ees. It's a struggle, and we're

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Speaker 1: working our way through the list and all of that,

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Speaker 1: and now we find out they're not paying them. Unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: Wade is a trade he's owed thousands of dollars. He's

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Speaker 1: on the line, has been good enough to have a

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Speaker 1: chat way.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning match, tell.

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Speaker 1: Me about no thank you for coming on. What's your situation?

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Speaker 1: How much are you owed for a start?

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Speaker 2: Currently it's between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars for work

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Speaker 2: orders that were issued to me last year September, I

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Speaker 2: think is the oldest one. We've finished doing the work

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Speaker 2: in January twenty twenty four after hundreds of work orders

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Speaker 2: were not paid for due to the onerous process that

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Speaker 2: the state government has given it to a company notorious

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Speaker 2: for screwing around tradees and other industries as well. If

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Speaker 2: you have a look at it, there's plenty of court

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Speaker 2: case well. And also further to that, the state government

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Speaker 2: hasn't got hasn't caught up with what the current material

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Speaker 2: prices are, current labor prices and how things work, so

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Speaker 2: they're still living in the eighties their contract. That's what

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Speaker 2: I see happening. That will happened systemically, and it's not

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Speaker 2: just me as one of the small tradees that are

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Speaker 2: suffering through this at the moment, much bigger organizations that

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Speaker 2: aren't willing to talk about this because they have other

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Speaker 2: contracts with other government departments. So it's all intertwined. But

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Speaker 2: it really needs to be stopped fixed.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, what does twenty grand down mean to you

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Speaker 1: and running your business? There must be quite an impact,

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Speaker 1: I imagine.

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Speaker 2: Oh hush, So you can imagine you need to turn

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Speaker 2: over let's say it's ten percent, how much do we

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Speaker 2: need to We need two hundred thousand dollars turn over

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Speaker 2: just to get that if we're going to make ten

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Speaker 2: percent back. So I've got to go out and turn

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Speaker 2: over another two hundred thousand dollars to make my ten

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Speaker 2: to fifteen thousand dollars back. That's not after paying the

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Speaker 2: government of taxes as well, So it doesn't stand to

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Speaker 2: work the economic model as we can see.

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Speaker 1: No, I presume now you've blacklisted government work. Essentially you're

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Speaker 1: not taking anymore only the.

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Speaker 2: South Australian Housing Trust and the Spotless contract. I have

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Speaker 2: some other smaller government departments that still provide me work

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Speaker 2: and they pay on time, and they pay appropriately.

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Speaker 1: What the issue is here, then, is just just somebody

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Speaker 1: who's dragging their feet on accounts.

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Speaker 2: There's probably a lot more to it, but I would

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Speaker 2: say that there's money issue all around the board. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: robbing Peter to pay Paul.

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Speaker 1: It sounds from what you say trade's know this. You

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Speaker 1: all talk together obviously on different jobs, and this has

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Speaker 1: got a reputation now that's getting around.

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Speaker 2: Oh yes, that's right. Yeah, So no one that has

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Speaker 2: a business that has some good contracts and some good

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Speaker 2: builders that they're working for wouldn't even touch this. I

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Speaker 2: took three friends that have been in the industry when

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Speaker 2: I first got approach for this contract, and they all

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Speaker 2: told me to stay away from it.

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Speaker 1: They were right, obviously when you say oonerus, what do

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Speaker 1: you mean by that? Soonorus practices just just talk us

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Speaker 1: through that.

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Speaker 2: Oh sorry, the tenant will call up, they will make

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Speaker 2: a complaint or you know, ring up and so there's

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Speaker 2: some damage here, it will get sent through. They will

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Speaker 2: then create a world order, which what they believe the

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Speaker 2: work order is. So we're talking about a tenant calling

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Speaker 2: to a call center, to a call center trying to

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Speaker 2: interpret what the job is. Then it comes through to

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Speaker 2: my office. We determine which trades person would go out there.

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Speaker 2: They go out there. The tenant hasn't had anyone in

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Speaker 2: especially when we first started this contract, hadn't had anyone

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Speaker 2: come out for eighteen months. So not only did my

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Speaker 2: tradesmen that would go out to that job be verbally

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Speaker 2: abused for not arriving on behalf of the state government

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Speaker 2: to provide repairs on their house. So we'd deal with that.

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Speaker 2: That might take fifteen minutes to deal with that person

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Speaker 2: and their emotions. Then we would look at the job

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Speaker 2: that's required, and generally the job required would be a

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Speaker 2: lot more than what the tenant has called up and

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Speaker 2: said we need to go back put a process in

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Speaker 2: to get approved to have that work done. And the

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Speaker 2: problem we found was the people that are involved don't

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Speaker 2: understand building works, or they then make it too complicated.

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Speaker 2: It's just a door that was replaced. He is an

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Speaker 2: easy one for the listeners is we might go out

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Speaker 2: and put a door on brand new door that's been

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Speaker 2: kicked in by say Paul, because they've gone out for

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Speaker 2: a mental health visit, and so we need to go

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Speaker 2: there and secure that property so that tenant is safe

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Speaker 2: after it's broken in, and we've worked out that that

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Speaker 2: person's okay and they're in there and they're just sleeping

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Speaker 2: or something like that, or they need to be carried

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Speaker 2: off to a medical yeah, looked after by the hospital.

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Speaker 2: But let's say the all that's going on my tradesman

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Speaker 2: goes out there, takes the door off, the broken door,

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Speaker 2: replace the door, goes away, comes back. You forgot to

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Speaker 2: take a photo. Then they won't pay you, even though

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Speaker 2: you can go back to that property and see that

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Speaker 2: that door has clearly been reinstalled as a new one.

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Speaker 2: You could call the tenant that's ther door. Okay, So

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Speaker 2: if one photo was missing or not five photos of

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Speaker 2: different angles, we've got to take a photo of the you,

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Speaker 2: the hat, the latch or the hinge or screw, if

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Speaker 2: something like that's missing, they will all payment out based

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Speaker 2: on that.

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Speaker 1: So that is owerus. Obviously you're not worried of those conditions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, body, I don't have a body cam. I'll

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Speaker 2: provide you all the footage. So we started doing that

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Speaker 2: at the end.

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Speaker 1: Really okay, so you are not concerned about being blacklisted.

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Speaker 1: You're talking out It sounds like you wouldn't take the

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Speaker 1: work if they begged you.

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Speaker 2: Now, oh no, that's right. There was situations where they

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Speaker 2: were begging and the last job they did beg me

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Speaker 2: to do. I ended up spending another five thousand dollars for.

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Speaker 1: That out of your money knowing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well that's tied up in the money there. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but because the situation and I like the supervisor, you know,

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Speaker 2: I did a favor for him, not for the organization.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you will get paid presumably, whyon't you like long term?

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Speaker 1: It's just the fact that takes forever.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it depends maybe the money in my bank after this.

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Speaker 1: Let's hope. Hope. Now, wait, you're still in business. You

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Speaker 1: want to give it a plug it all?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So BBS SPECSI building services. We only are looking

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Speaker 2: to do now material services for the carpentry industry. But

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Speaker 2: we're at Port Adelaide, BBS, look us up. We can

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Speaker 2: help you out.

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Speaker 1: Terrific. Good on you, Thank you for your time this morning.

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Speaker 1: Good luck with it. Wait from BBS there on just

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Speaker 1: not being paid and you hear the stories, just terrible

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Speaker 1: in terms of what he's got to do. I've seen

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Speaker 1: a response to the Tyser story from Rebecca who has

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Speaker 1: responded to what they've got today. She says, our building

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Speaker 1: maintenance company had the shutdown in September last year because

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Speaker 1: the contract of the government deals with and pays the

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Speaker 1: tradees refused to pay us for works completed on say

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Speaker 1: housing jobs. We were a small business of four people

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Speaker 1: getting sent one hundred to two fifty jobs a day

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Speaker 1: to complete to quote on, then had to drop everything

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Speaker 1: when Priority one came in. Some bigger jobs like house renaults,

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Speaker 1: kitchen renolds would take a few weeks. Other jobs already

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Speaker 1: booked with tenants got pushed back. We also had three

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Speaker 1: police raids while guys were on site. We had our

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Speaker 1: guys being threatened by tenants. We had loose dogs. They

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Speaker 1: wouldn't allow two men teams because they had to pay

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Speaker 1: more money, even though it was for safety. We were

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Speaker 1: screwed by this contract. With this contract and many others,

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Speaker 1: I said to my boss the taking on any say

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Speaker 1: housing contract work will kill us. And by September we

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Speaker 1: were out of business due to them owing us one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. They signed off on nothing.

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Speaker 1: They would find a fault, make us fix it, then

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Speaker 1: not change charge us for the time we spent fixing.

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Speaker 1: That's so called fault. If we aren't getting paid, we

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Speaker 1: can't run the business or pay our staff. In the end,

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Speaker 1: we were all made redundant and then the business shut

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Speaker 1: down completely. It was so sad. Thirty plus years in

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Speaker 1: the building industry down the drain, and I know many

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Speaker 1: other companies who went the same way from Rebecca. Andrew

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Speaker 1: Clark is CEO Master Plumbers Association, Andrew, good morning. Is

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Speaker 1: it as bad as all that?

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Speaker 3: Good morning, Matthew. Well, it is absolutely one. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's the list of concerns. Just keep rolling on that

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Speaker 3: story that you just pulled out. Then I've heard that.

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Speaker 3: You know, I was involved in a very similar story

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Speaker 3: back in twenty fourteen slash fifteen, and that's what sparked

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Speaker 3: this whole thing back then. And then then there was

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Speaker 3: they shut down a plumbing business and and then there's

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Speaker 3: been a little bit quiet until it's just ramped up

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Speaker 3: again now where a series of tradees are not getting paid.

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Speaker 3: So action has to happen now because it's just getting

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Speaker 3: a joke becoming a joke.

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Speaker 1: So the state government's really got to step in here,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it.

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Speaker 3: Well, the state government have to Well, they'll be doing

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Speaker 3: their investigation and I'll see what we've seen for a

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Speaker 3: period of time, and you know, the whole process has

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Speaker 3: to change. I mean, you know, Wade explained to you

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Speaker 3: some of the complexities of how the system work. You've

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Speaker 3: got to understand that unless you're in the trade, you

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Speaker 3: don't know what is involved in repair work. You do

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Speaker 3: not know what is involved in complying with the WHS legislation, right,

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Speaker 3: these sorts of things which are evolving. You know, we've

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Speaker 3: had industrial relation changes updates in the last eighteen months

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Speaker 3: which are impacting businesses. Fine, but the businesses have to

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Speaker 3: react and then meet these requirements. If you're not getting

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Speaker 3: paid money to meet those requirements, how can you do

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Speaker 3: the work safely? And way? I did talk about the

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Speaker 3: intimidation and some of the risks that these tradees are encountering,

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Speaker 3: and it is actually a lot higher than people actually think.

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Speaker 3: It's not easy.

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Speaker 1: What's your message to tradings out there, then? What should

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Speaker 1: they do from here moving forward with this sort of work.

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Speaker 3: Well, well, first of all, my message is that first

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Speaker 3: of all, you need be paid for the work that's

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Speaker 3: being done. Now, that's the first thing I want to see.

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Speaker 3: I want to see all outstanding debt paid up. And

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Speaker 3: until then, well I'll be selecting what top of work

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Speaker 3: you actually do because a, if it's dangerous, don't do it,

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Speaker 3: simple as that, Because why should a tradesman or anybody

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Speaker 3: be put in a situation where it's dangerous and your

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Speaker 3: life is in risk and if you can't meet your

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Speaker 3: WHS requirements, don't do the work.

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Speaker 1: Simple as that, There we go, Andrew, appreciate your time, Thank.

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Speaker 3: You, thanks mass you sis.

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Speaker 1: Andrew Clark there CEO Master Plumbers Association on trade ees

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Speaker 1: not being paid by the contractor that the state government

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Speaker 1: uses to allocate work for housing essay