I'm not saying it didn't happen, but could you give some examples of how small trades got done over by the BER ?
For BER you would have a big big builder that was overseeing the subcontractors, government payouts.
Now there were multiple issues:
Deadlines
So you had impossible deadlines. I would turn up to a job and there would be no scaffolding. I'd yell at the site manager as this was now cutting into my time and there's no extension. Thing is the scaffolding are having problems as well as they haven't been paid for the last three jobs they had done as the agency overseeing it all is fking around. So if the whole job is running behind and you couldn't do your job because others were behind. You would get hit with penalties. And a lot of the time it wasn't the other guys fault for being late. But due to weather or material/site safety.
Can't provide a proper quote to actual works. You would quote off the plan for a job. When you turn up the whole things changed often costing thousands more and you are already locked in.
You also wouldn't see money for months. So if you had a large crew, you had to wear the costs for months. Government was slow on payments to the point that guys went broke.
There was plenty more buy memory fades.
They used my work as a centrepiece of the BER we had the least faults out of everyone really minor stuff. A politician went on TV out the front of it talking up the BER. I've been round the block a few times and remembered thinking 'if it was this much of a sht fight for someone like me I'd hate to see how the other tradies are fairing'.
Turns out they went through worse and went broke. I was smart enough to do a couple and then tell them to "fk off". Mismanaged mess on a grand scale. Which brings me to the:
Insulation debacle
So I watched this with some amusement. It was rushed out and looked like a complete mess. This was the major problem with Rudd's roll-outs they were so rushed that there was zero thought to what could go wrong. I understand at the time the gfc just rolled through. But industry was already busy and wasn't slowing down.
You could buy these machines that spat insulation into roofs. Just kick a tile and point the nozzle inside. Unfortunately you would damage the sarking on a lot of these roofs but cowboys don't care.
So the pay was something like $1200 to $2100 it lessened over time from the higher figure it may have been $1800 I can't remember now. But people would just spray this sht everywhere. Especially over the lights causing potential fire hazards. But I knew a bricklayer who started doing it made over $600000 in a matter of months. Bought a house with it. Groups of town houses were a gold mine.
Now everyone was loading up on insulation as there was a bit of a shortage. Guys start importing warehouses full of it from overseas. This was full steam ahead.
And then they cut the grant short without warning.
Now you have guys losing hundreds of thousands. The guys that were originally in the insulation installation industry are basically ruined as there were no jobs left to insulate due to this scheme. It was a complete balls up.
As for the guys getting killed, well the government was indeed warned at the time. A mate of mine who is on some 'electrician council' actually went to Canberra to outline the dangers or so I was told.
And the rorts, oh the rorts. Guys would just insulated round the manhole. Others would just get people to sign the paperwork saying it was completed and take off overseas with hundreds of thousands of $.
This scheme at least enriched the first lot of guys that were in. I wouldn't call it value for money though. The big industry overseeing it were the ones making the real money.
There was a lot more but that's over a decade now and details escape me.