Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

It’s no secret that the construction industry is in trouble.  There’s a number of factors. Firstly the boom in construction right after the pandemic years as money became cheaper and cheaper, so more and more projects were undertaken. We had a residential construction boom in 2022, with approximately 51,000 consents issued, driven by surging house prices and historically low interest rates.  But the good times weren’t to last.   A new government cut many projects, including the construction of 2500 state houses - cutting builders' lunches. Meanwhile the supply of cheap money dried up as the Reserve Bank attacked the recession by raising interest rates.  We ended out with too many builders for fewer projects.  As major infrastructure projects went on hiatus, waiting for a government wanting to spend on them, highly trained construction workers went looking for work - most often in Australia.  Construction went into a tailspin and there are claims we’ve lost 17,000 workers.  B