Victoria's construction industry reopens after two-week closure

After a fortnight-long closure, the Victorian Government has announced how the state’s construction industries will reopen on Tuesday, with up to 25 per cent capacity of workers.

Restrictions on the Victorian construction industry will ease from 11.59pm on Monday, 4 October, with a Construction Sector Roadmap setting a way forward for the sector to stay open and keep our community safe.

In order to work onsite, all workers will need to continue to carry an Authorised Worker Permit and have had at least one vaccine dose.

Every construction site in Victoria must also have a designated fully trained COVID Marshal to ensure compliance with the Chief Health Officer’s (CHO) directions.

Prior to reopening, operators will be required to attest that they have implemented the CHO directions and every site will need to have an up to date vaccination register available for compliance checks at all times.

In order to make this process as easy as possible, an online portal will soon be available on the Service Victoria website so these documents are accessible for both the operator and compliance teams.

Crib facilities may be used for the consumption of food and drink with strict density requirements and additional ventilation.

Up to five workers and a supervisor will be able to work onsite for small scale construction projects, and large scale sites can have up to 25 per cent of workers onsite.

Construction on greenfield developments can return with 20 workers per hectare.

If crib rooms meet best practice and the entire workforce is fully vaccinated, large scale construction sites can have up to 50 per cent of workers onsite.

Projects on the State Critical Infrastructure list will operate at 100 per cent as long as crib rooms follow best practice guidelines.

Subject to continued high levels of compliance by the industry, workforce caps will progressively increase.

At Victoria’s 70 per cent double dose milestone, large scale construction can return to 100 per cent of its workforce.

Large-scale commercial construction can return with 25 per cent of the workforce.

That can be increased to 50 per cent of the workforce provided all workers are fully vaccinated and crib rooms follow best practice guidelines.

Caps will be removed when Victoria reaches its 80 per cent target, and in addition, all onsite workers must be fully vaccinated by 13 November.

Fully vaccinated workers can travel between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria in order to work onsite.

Workers on state critical projects or large scale construction can also travel between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria if they have had a single dose, take an initial test before their first travel, then test twice per week until fully vaccinated.

To allow all sites to remobilise, workers who have had at least one vaccination dose will be able to enter a site prior to 5 October in order to undertake crib facility improvements, participate in a reinduction or receive deliveries.

As part of the re-opening, the Victorian Government expects the construction industry to comply with directions in full.

Teams of authorised workers will conduct checks to enforce directions, and penalties will be in place for builders and site operators that do not comply – including site shutdowns for significant or repeated breaches.

The Building Industry Group of Unions issued a statement welcoming the announcement.

The group said the reopening included several of its recommendations, including improved safety measures, stricter COVID-safe plans and the return of the smoko shed (or crib room).

But the group has called on the state government to introduce rapid antigen testing.

The infrastructure think tank, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, also welcomed the decision, with Chief Executive Adrian Dwyer applauding the state government for working with the industry on the pathway to re-opening.

“The Victorian Government has made the right decision to allow authorised workers back on site and start contributing to the state’s economic recovery again,” Mr Dwyer said.

He did, however, note that the pipeline of projects will remain out of sync with workforce caps in place.

“Analysis of ANZIP – Australia’s definitive pipeline of infrastructure opportunities – shows construction on more than 25 major infrastructure projects and programs, worth a combined $47 billion have seen disruptions due to the shutdown in Victoria,” he noted.

“With authorised workers set to pick up the tools again on Tuesday, government and industry will need to work hard to get the pipeline back on track,” said Mr Dwyer.

As of October 3, 52.14 per cent of all eligible Victorians aged 16 and over had been fully vaccinated, with 81.98 per cent having received the first dose.

When questioned about how many construction workers were vaccinated, Premier Daniel Andrews said people were not asked what their profession was when they went to get vaccinated, but he did say he would try and get the data.

“But there’s been a sea of fluoro, lots of tradies, older and younger, coming through and getting their first and second doses,” he said.

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