“My principal concern was people weren’t going to have livelihoods to go back to and this is a really good reason for people to go and get those jabs. We get moving again, which is highly important because the whole thing was about to fall over.”
Mr Constance said the industry had been close to losing “thousands and thousands” of jobs.
“This has been a lifeline in getting people back to worksites which are well managed in terms of COVID safety,” he said.
Under the latest changes, construction workers from the eight council areas in west and south-west Sydney under tight restrictions are allowed to return to work if they have had two vaccines, or one dose at least three weeks ago.
Construction workers who have had one dose within the past three weeks can return to work provided they have had a negative COVID-19 test in the previous 72 hours.
The health orders cap the number of workers on a site in Greater Sydney at 50 per cent of the maximum number at the peak of construction.
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On the day that restrictions eased, Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned that the surge in case numbers is “expected to continue”.
Construction giant Lendlease said it was working closely with its workforce, subcontractors and suppliers to ensure compliance with the health orders.
“In addition to strict health and safety measures in place, we are also supporting access to vaccinations for our workers and implementing onsite trials of rapid antigen testing,” a spokesperson said.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics from May suggests there are close to 350,000 jobs in construction in NSW.
The NSW government’s construction ban impacted more than $36 billion in infrastructure projects across Greater Sydney, according to Infrastructure Partnerships Australia analysis.
The shutdown affected an estimated $14 billion of road projects across Sydney, including a new motorway link to Sydney Airport and the third stage of the WestConnex toll road project.
Close to $8 billion in major infrastructure alone was impacted by the remaining restrictions to the eight locked down council areas.
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Infrastructure Partnerships Australia chief executive Adrian Dwyer welcomed the easing of restrictions but said the government now needed to consider completely re-opening the sector.
“It is important the NSW government maintains its focus on fully reopening construction as swiftly as possible to help turn the economic tide of this lockdown,” he said.
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Source: | This article originally belongs to smh.com.au
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