New campaign puts politicians on notice: 'Let Us Build Qld'

QUEENSLAND politicians vying for government in the upcoming election are being put on notice that now is the time to stop millions of dollars in profits flowing overseas to foreign owned construction companies.

Australian Owned Contractors (AOC) has launched the ‘Let Us Build Queensland’ campaign, demanding that Queensland projects be built by Queensland and Australian owned companies.

The six-week campaign strategically targets marginal seats ahead of the State election, focusing on the Brisbane and Gold Coast seats of Aspley, Mansfield and Gaven and the regional seats of Townsville and Mundingburra.

AOC CEO Brent Crockford and AOC director Scott Power said the campaign deliberately pulled no punches, including election-style advertising and an online petition to force action.

“Voters in marginal seats will be mobilised and politicians pressured to make action on this issue part of their election platform,” Mr Crockford said.
“All of Australia’s major construction companies are now foreign owned and they dominate across our biggest public infrastructure projects.

“In fact, 95 cents in every dollar spent by Governments on these major projects across the country now goes to foreign owned companies.

“The ‘Let Us Build Queensland’ campaign seeks to draw a line in the sand ahead of the State election, and to illustrate to Queenslanders who really reap the benefits of our biggest projects – and it’s not Australian companies.”

The AOC represents 18 of Australia’s leading home-grown and owned contracting companies and has launched the campaign to fight for local opportunity and competition, local skills development, and domestic company growth.

Mr Power said most Queenslanders were unaware of just how high the cards were stacked against local construction and engineering firms when it came to bidding for and winning major work.

“Our companies regularly take on and successfully deliver projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but we are locked out and left fighting for sub-contracting scraps when it comes to leading the biggest projects,” Mr Power said.

“Capability is rarely a factor in these situations – it comes down to ability to take on sole financial risk when procurement is bundled together in mega-projects by government agencies.

“It’s a one-size-fits-all mentality to tendering which relegates Australian companies to second class subcontractor status while foreign owned multi-nationals lead the work on our biggest national projects.”

Mr Crockford said the AOC campaign was unapologetic in drawing voter attention to the issue and urged Queenslanders to sign the petition which called on local politicians to put a stop to offshore favouritism.

The ‘Let Us Build Queensland’ petition is available via the campaign webpage: www.letusbuild.com.au

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