Plumbers charge 'pain tax' as inspector shortage holds up Hobart planning approvals, frustrates tradies

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Plumbers working on jobs in the Hobart City Council area openly admit to charging clients up to 30 per cent extra, as "frustrating" red tape for compliance certificates add lengthy approval delays and cost. Tasmania's Master Plumbers Association confirms "some plumbers won't work in the Hobart municipality", and others inflate prices to account for delays.

Transcript

00:00Plumber Luke Morfurt is getting his hands dirty at a house in West Hobart.

00:08Final approval for this renovation has been held up for two years

00:12by an ongoing dispute with Hobart City Council's Plumbing Department.

00:16It's the plumbing inspectors when you actually get to site,

00:20they're the biggest challenge for us.

00:23The delay has cost the owner thousands of dollars.

00:26We do charge more purely because of how onerous Hobart City Council can be.

00:33If they make it take longer for us to do the job, we have to charge more.

00:38Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliott has tapped into the building industry's frustration

00:43by launching a survey on her Facebook page which had dozens of responses within days,

00:48expressing particular frustration with the council's plumbing department.

00:53The results have actually been really concerning for me.

00:55She says some respondents have told her they're adding hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars

01:01to their quotes to account for delays.

01:03There seems to be what I'm describing as a pain tax,

01:06where a lot of people are actually charging more,

01:09plumbers are charging more especially, for doing work in Hobart.

01:12The Master Plumbers Association of Tasmania told the ABC

01:16that some plumbers won't work in Hobart Municipality and some plumbers do increase their prices

01:22to cover the extra cost and delay associated with working with Hobart Council.

01:28Internal documents seen by the ABC also confirm that there have been backlogs in the plumbing department,

01:35something acknowledged by the council.

01:37Seven months ago we identified that we need to provide some more resourcing into this space,

01:41so there is a skills shortage in terms of plumbing inspectors at the moment across Tasmania.

01:46The council says it's working to resolve the issues in consultation with the industry

01:51and has recently employed a new plumbing inspector to boost the team's capacity.

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