Page 8 - Climate Control News Magazine April 2021

News
Poor workmanship due to penny pinching
THE PROLIFERATION OF installation and commissioning faults in Australia’s refrigeration and air conditioning industry has been attribut- ed to the “least cost” approach to procurement.
Seeking out the cheapest option is the stand- ard approach to procurement across the Aus- tralian RAC market and throughout the con- struction industry.
A federal government report released last month entitled Leaks, Maintenance & Emissions
The ‘least cost’ approach to procurement means building to minimum standards.
found the construction and RAC industries are highly competitive, with tender processes de- signed to rate different procurement options or different providers largely based on cost, with the least cost solution most often selected.
“In many projects this reflects the split in- centives that exist between the developer/de- signer, who looks to achieve lowest capital costs, and the owner/operator who would ben- efit from a lowest life-cycle cost approach, even
at the expense of a higher initial capital cost,” the report said.
“As less expensive equipment and lower quali- ty systems tend to be lower performing and re- quire more maintenance, it also suggests that least cost purchasing can drive excessive energy consumption in RAC systems.”
At the same time least cost building con- struction practices do not build to best practice or good quality standards but to meet mini- mum compliance. Least cost can refer to both equipment and practitioners (designers and contractors) and both can have an influence on system quality.
The quality and integration of different build- ing elements generally suffers, resulting in low quality buildings with poor sealing and low ther- mal performance.
The report found that systems procured on a least cost basis can employ low quality mini- mum performance equipment, poor workman- ship and quality assurance, poor system moni- toring and control, and lack of system documentation and operator training and un- derstanding.
These tendencies in the Australian market can be compounded by an absence of an inte- grated approach to commissioning.
Extension to apprentice wage subsidy
THE PRIME MINISTER, Scott Morrison, last month announced a $1.2 billion funding boost to its wage subsidy scheme for ap- prentices extending the program for anoth- er 12 months.
The extension, which is expected to gener- ate some 70,000 new apprentice and trainee places, is part of government plans to roll out targeted assistance for the post-Job- Keeper economy.
The Boosting Apprenticeship Commence- ments wage subsidy program will assist ap- prentices and trainees who are signed up before 30 September, 2021.
The program was first announced last year with the government providing a subsidy that covered 50 per cent of wages paid to an ap- prentice. The cost of the first stage was also $1.2 billion.
The extension will now be demand-driven and employers will be eligible to receive up to $7000 a quarter to hire or keep on an apprentice.
The Prime Minister said about one-fifth of new apprentices recruited under the scheme were over 35 years of age.
“At the outset of the pandemic, we made keep- ing apprentices in their jobs one of our first pri- orities,” he said.
Morrison said 40 per cent of the new ap- prentices and trainees have gone to small businesses, with the largest take up in the con- struction sector.
In NSW the scheme has assisted 4,603 con- struction businesses taking on 6,477 new tradies. “These apprentices would likely have been the first to go. Such a loss would have been devastat- ing for our economy as years of training would have been lost and, I suspect, never recovered,”
Morrison said.
The extension will support 70,000 new apprentices and trainees.
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