Ann: New Funding Agreement - Forge Group , page-49

Unions may have had a larger effect than people realise, but it was a perfect storm.

Shortage of workers driving wages up to ridiculous levels, this happened for a number of years, then work dried up and it reached critical mass. All of a sudden projects were buckling under the costs and we saw a pop, unfortunately FGE was the unlucky party, wages industry wide may be coming off now though as a result.

I have raised the Desal plant job before but it is well known workers deliberately let it run over delivery date in this case in order to gain penalty rates. As the contractor was being stung each day they were using overtime and weekends to get it done asap which is all double time etc. It is conceivable that trick was tried on CTEC jobs and has resulted in the ultimate backfire.

I have no basis for this thought but we just don't know until legal action is undertaken.