Public hearings on Queensland’s proposed construction code run from 14 to 30 July, sitting right on top of the 24 July deadline for industry to respond. The witnesses being called reveal the model on the table: a state-level rebuild of the ABCC.

Queensland’s construction industry has known for months that a code of practice was coming. What it did not have, until now, was a clear picture of what that code would look like or who was shaping it.

The public hearings running from 14 to 30 July change that. Sitting directly on top of the 24 July deadline for industry to respond to the draft code, the Commission of Inquiry is hearing evidence from two men whose fingerprints are all over the proposal: Nigel Hadgkiss and Wayne Jenkinson. Both spent years running construction industry regulators. Between them, their statements define what the Queensland code would prohibit, who it would bind, and how far it would reach.

For any builder who tenders for government work, or subcontracts to a firm that does, this is the moment the code stops being an abstract policy question and starts becoming a recognisable set of rules. And the model on the table is not a new invention. It is a rebuild of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, at state level.

Who Nigel Hadgkiss is, and why it matters

Nigel Hadgkiss ran the ABCC. Wayne Jenkinson worked in construction regulation alongside him. Counsel Assisting has called both to give evidence in support of the code, and their witness statements are the backbone of the case for it.

That detail tells you more about the coming regime than any summary could. When you understand who is being asked to design the model, you understand the model. Hadgkiss and Jenkinson are not being called to debate whether a code is a good idea in the abstract. They are being called to explain, from direct experience running these regimes in other jurisdictions, exactly which features a code needs to work.

The submission is candid about the lineage. It sets out a history of construction codes in Australia going back to 1997, running through the original National Code, the ABCC’s establishment, its abolition, its re-establishment, and its most recent disbanding by the Albanese Government in early 2023. Since then, there has been no code and no dedicated regulator at the federal level. Queensland is proposing to fill that gap on its own.

Hadgkiss points to the 2016 federal Code and the Victorian Code as the models worth copying. So when you read the draft Queensland guidelines, you are effectively reading an updated version of the rulebook the ABCC once enforced nationally.

The single most important thing to understand: a code targets contractors, not unions

This is the part that gets lost in most coverage, and it is the part that matters most to your business.

A code does not work by regulating unions directly. It works by making a contractor’s eligibility to tender for government-funded construction conditional on compliance. The rules apply to everyone on site, but the consequences of breaking them land on the contractor. Fail to comply, and you can be excluded from government work.

The logic is deliberate. Faced with the risk of losing access to government contracts, a contractor is motivated not just to follow the rules themselves but to insist that everyone else on their site does too. The submission is explicit that this gives a contractor a concrete reason to refuse to facilitate unlawful or unproductive conduct. Instead of being pressured into waving through a practice they know is wrong, the contractor can point to the code and the government work they would lose.

In other words, the code is designed to change what happens on site by changing what is at stake for the head contractor. That is the mechanism. Understand it, and everything else in the proposal falls into place.

What the code would actually prohibit

The submission names specific practices a code should stamp out. These are not vague principles. They are the concrete arrangements that Hadgkiss and Jenkinson say inflate cost and slow work on Queensland sites.

The prohibited list includes minimum manning arrangements, restrictions on the types of employment a contractor can offer, rules dictating the order of redundancies such as “last on, first off”, requirements to involve unions in resourcing decisions, limits on how a contractor allocates work, and the prescribing of terms on which subcontractors may be engaged. Unregistered written agreements would also be off the table.

Alongside those productivity measures sit rules protecting freedom of association. A code would prohibit “no ticket, no start” practices and “show card days”, any requirement that workers disclose their union membership, the hiring of non-working shop stewards, the excessive display of union paraphernalia on site, and the harassment of workers based on whether they take part in industrial activity.

There is also a right-of-entry component. The code would require contractors to observe the legislated right-of-entry framework, and give them the backing to refuse entry that falls outside it. The submission acknowledges the practical reality here: contractors are often reluctant to challenge a non-compliant entry because of the threat of retaliation and delay. A code, on this argument, hands them a reason to hold the line.

How far it reaches: beyond government jobs, and past the clean-skin trick

Two features of the proposed model deserve particular attention, because they extend the code well past the obvious boundary of a single government tender.

First, a code-covered contractor would be required to comply with the code on all its construction work, not just its government-funded projects. The reasoning in the submission is that applying the rules only to government jobs would never deliver industry-wide reform. If you win government work, in other words, the standards follow you onto your private jobs too.

Second, the code would apply to any “related entity” of a covered contractor. This is aimed squarely at the clean-skin manoeuvre, where a business sets up a separate entity to bid for and carry out government work while keeping its existing arrangements quarantined elsewhere. Closing that door means a contractor cannot dodge the consequences of non-compliance by restructuring on paper.

For subcontractors, there is a flow-down effect worth understanding. Head contractors would be required to ensure their subbies comply with the code, because a subcontractor’s breach can expose the head contractor to exclusion. That transfers much of the enforcement burden onto industry itself. Head contractors, motivated to protect their own eligibility, become the ones insisting on compliance down the chain.

The workplace relations management plan

There is a paperwork dimension that larger operators should note now. Previous codes required tenderers for government work to submit a workplace relations management plan, a document setting out how the contractor will meet the code’s requirements on a given project. The Queensland model is expected to follow suit.

The plan serves two purposes. Preparing it forces a contractor to actually think through how it will comply, and it gives the regulator a clear document to assess that compliance against. Because writing one takes real time, previous codes only required a plan for work above a certain size or value, which keeps the administrative load off smaller packages. Expect a similar threshold here.

Why a new regulator, not the QBCC

A code without a regulator is a rulebook with no referee, which is why Counsel Assisting has proposed the two together. The submission argues the regulator must be independent, sit outside any government department, and hold coercive investigative powers, because many of the practices a code targets are difficult to prove without them.

The pointed part, for a Queensland audience, is what the submission says about the existing regulator. It states plainly that the Queensland Building and Construction Commission lacks the experience and resources to enforce a workplace relations code, and flags that a case study on the CFMEU’s influence on the QBCC will be presented to the Commission. That is a thread worth watching across the July hearings. The businesses that keep their licensing and compliance obligations in order are the ones best placed to adapt smoothly if a new enforcement body arrives, rather than scrambling to catch up.

How this fits the reforms already reshaping government work

The code proposal does not stand alone. Queensland has spent more than a year rewriting the terms of government construction. Earlier this year the state moved to permanently remove Best Practice Industry Conditions and scrap subcontractor pre-qualification on government projects, both flowing from the Queensland Productivity Commission’s review that found construction productivity had fallen around 9 per cent since 2018.

The submission draws a direct line between the two. It describes BPIC as having entrenched excess and unproductive practices, and casts a code as the antithesis: where BPIC inflated labour costs, a properly designed code is meant to promote productivity. So the sequence matters. One reform stripped a set of conditions off government work. The code would add a different set, focused on conduct and eligibility rather than wages and labour arrangements. Different doors, same building.

Should you respond, and what happens next

The response window closes at 4pm on Friday 24 July. Written responses go to the Commission. Anyone with a stake in Queensland construction can lodge one, and the businesses with the most at risk are those that tender for government work and the subcontractors who work for them.

Whether it is worth your time depends on your exposure. If your eligibility for government contracts, your enterprise agreements, or your subcontracting arrangements would be touched by the rules above, an early written response tends to carry more weight than a comment made once positions have hardened. If you have already read our earlier breakdown of the draft code and how to lodge a response, you know the mechanics. This piece is about what the July hearings reveal underneath them.

One point of context that changes how you should read the 24 July date. The Commission’s final report, once due on 31 July this year, was pushed out to 3 December 2027 after an 18-month extension granted in late May. So the response deadline is a near-term window inside a process that now runs well into 2027. Responding now is an early input, not a last word. But early input on a draft is exactly the kind that shapes the version everyone eventually has to work within.

For most builders outside government work, this remains a watch item. But it is a significant one. A Queensland construction code enforced by an independent, ABCC-style regulator would be one of the biggest shifts in government construction procurement the state has seen in years, and the hearings running through late July are where its shape is being set.

The Good Builder Take

Do not get lost in the union politics of this. The practical question for your business is narrower: would the rules above touch how you win or deliver government work? If yes, the 24 July window is cheap insurance, and knowing the model is an ABCC rebuild tells you roughly what compliance will look like. If no, file it as a watch item. Either way, the businesses that keep their compliance house in order adapt to a new regulator. The ones that do not, scramble.

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Last updated: 13 July 2026. This article covers a live consultation and hearings running to 30 July 2026; details may change.

General information only. This article is not legal or financial advice and does not take account of your specific circumstances. Consider your own situation and seek professional guidance before acting on anything covered here.

Author: TGB Editorial