Victoria’s construction industry will be able to return to the tools from Tuesday as the state government announces a Construction Sector Roadmap.
From 11.59pm on Monday, restrictions on the construction industry will ease.
In order to work on site, all workers will be required to carry an Authorised Worker Permit and have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Every construction site must have a fully-trained COVID Marshal to ensure compliance.
Before they can reopen, operators will be required to attest they have implemented the Chief Health Officer’s directions.
An up-to-date vaccine register will need to be available for compliance checks -with an online portal to be made available on the Service Victoria website.
Up to five workers and a supervisor will be able to work onsite for small scale construction projects.
Large worksites can have 25 per cent of workers onsite.
If tea rooms meet meet best practice and the entire workforce is vaccinated, large scale construction sites can have up to 50 per cent of workers on site.
Projects on the State Critical Infrastructure list will operate at 100 per cent as long as tea rooms follow guidelines.
At the 70 per cent vaccine milestone, large scale construction can return to 100 per cent capacity.
At 80 per cent, all caps will be removed.
All onsite workers must be fully vaccinated by November 13.
Two weeks ago, Victoria’s construction industry was shut down due to the spread of COVID-19 and poor compliance.
A day earlier there was a violent protest at the CFMEU headquarters in the CBD and the location is now a Tier 1 exposure site.
At the time, Health Minister Martin Foley condemned the violence, describing it as “deplorable and an insult to every Victorian who has been doing the right thing”.
Construction was locked-down for two weeks in Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Mitchell Shire and the Surf Coast as there were 337 cases directly linked to sites.
Friday’s COVID cases
On Friday, Victoria recorded its second day ever of more than 1000 daily COVID cases.
The health department confirmed there had been 1143 cases in the 24 hours until midnight and there were also three COVID-related deaths.
34,935 doses of the vaccine were administered on Thursday and the state now has 10,944 active cases of the virus.
Friday’s cases are a welcome drop from a day earlier after they surged to 1438 due to banned gatherings over the long weekend.
