Kyoda. I'm Susanne Ordquist in for Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The construction industry in New Zealand is struggling, with building companies going to the wall as the housing market falls away. It also has one of the highest rates of workplace injuries of any industry. But there's another
workplace hazard that we're not talking about. Construction workers are six times more likely to die from suicide than from an accident at work, and last year that number climbed to eighty suspected or confirmed suicides according to one report, the highest number on record. Today on the Front Page, we are joined by New Zealand Herald Property editor Anne Gibson to talk what's going on in the sector and how severe the mental health issue is. And these figures
make for pretty grim reading. What do you make of them?
Well, it's an utter and real tragedy. This is the highest number on record from data which dates back seventeen years, according to Mates, which is an organization to prevent such deaths. So this week we have World Suicide Prevention Day and the cases can take up to five years to be confirmed by coronial services, so at the stage some of those eighty remain suspected and are yet to be confirmed as suicide.
The data came via Mates in Construction, as you said, which aims to reduce the number of lives lost to suicide. Why are so many people choosing to end their lives in construction this well?
Mates cited some of the stresses in the sector, and they talked about lack of sleep. They mentioned a minimal self care time, very high job demands, long hours, and very tight time frames on builds, so often the workforce is under pressure to complete jobs. And the specific mental health vulnerabilities that they noted were particularly amongst the age group fifteen to twenty four years of age, and they talked about this going across all groups, including the migrant workers,
the blue collar and the white collar workers. They talked about financial instability and poor communication and a site culture of old school masculinity. And they also mentioned job and security and particularly insufficient mental health support.
And I didn't know where to get support. I'm a male, and the best of times, males don't like to talk about the emotions. If I'm able to be standing in front of a whole bunch of tough construction workers and be at a vulnerable state. And if somebody out there in the audience is struggling there in a dark place, my narrative helps them to reach out and find support. And I'm okay with today.
And within those figures are a number of people who needed time off because they self harmed as well. Can you tell us a bit about that?
He's well.
I went to Dr Chris Bowden, he's a lecturer at Victoria University and he is also the academic director of the Mates organization, and he said there was suicidal and non suicidal self harm. He put it into two categories, and she told me this involves injuries and behaviors, usually where the person hurts themselves deliberately, and it's often a coping strategy, he said, where they they feel they're overwhelmed.
So the link between self harm and suicide is when people are suicidal, but sometimes they also engage and self harm. And I asked him what did he mean by that, and he mentioned examples of cutting, burning, and punching a wall.
So clearly a big problem here, and the figures have actually doubled in the last four years. That's during a pretty challenging time for the sector, as the stresses of COVID, lockdown, inflation and how that's contributed to canceled work added to stress for workers.
Well. Dr Balden said to me that these were all quite influential factors in terms of the increasing numbers, and he cited COVID and lockdown and also said that most construction work stopped during the pandemic was only essential work that could continue, and that led to instability and financial
insecurity for a lot of people in the workforce. And he said to me that some workers didn't have guaranteed income and despite the fact that the government paid out I think about fourteen billion dollars in the wage subsidy for employers, he said there were a lot of people who work in construction who only actually get paid for the hours worked. So he said there was a lot of distress in the lower paid laboring workforce. And he
said these were people who are not on salaries. And I remember a particularly shocking event I think earlier last year when there were deaths on a building site on the Auckland waterfront on one Queen Street, and I think three people died there. There was a real tragedy with mutter Reed who was only twenty four and he entered that site with a gun. So it shows what can happen on construction sites.
Post Mortems on the bodies of three people who died in the Auckland CBD shooting yesterday will be completed in a matter of days. However, we can tell you that both victims were construction workers in their forties. It's being reported the twenty four year old Shudent Mature was a distraddled employee. You've been sacked the day before.
You touched on the financial instability or communication, low pay, job in security, and insufficient mental health support. How is the industry responding to those issues?
Well, Chris Bowden said, you've got a mix of generations on different sites, often a lot of people on the sites. And he talked about an old school culture, which he said still actually exists. And he said, you've got the old school often men, he said, with younger women and younger men and also non binary. And he said, you know, this younger age group is pushing back against you know, the very different attitudes that have existed in the construction
workplace over the years. And he said young people have very different views and perspectives on what masculinity is. So he sees quite a change occurring on the site, but also quite a sort of a deep seated, embedded know older group who have a different view of the world themselves and perhaps the people they work with as well. How do you fix that problem then, well, he said
that this is changing. He said that with the arrival of more women on sites, and with the arrival of younger people, they have different attitudes and they will eventually, you know, outnumber the older people. And I think you know that MATES sees a lot of hope with the work that they are doing, the siticide prevention, all the information that they're getting through to the workforce.
There are concerns about low pay too. Is that an easy fix in this current market?
Well, he said not at all. He said that low pay and the lack of security around the jobs mean that people can sometimes feel that they're in a very un stable environment on a building site. And he said he actually quade an example to me of people who will be working two jobs in the one day. So in the daytime, they'll be you know, working on the building site and at night, he said, they'll be working
as Zuba drivers and he said they're just exhausted. But one really sad thing about that is they have no time for their families and then last of all, they have no time for themselves.
Well, what made and constructions all about is trying to get people to speak up, especially for our specific Islanders and Maori. You know, when we're growing up not knowing how to tell you on our emotions. Are we shtart to chie pretty much is asking for help and you get to a point where you don't know what to do or say for me personally because I'm not one to speak up or it wasn't are you It was hard. I'm not going to lie. It was hard, and lucky the boy was there to save the day, I guess.
So not a great time to be in construction and it's not been the easiest few years. Are we seeing things starting to pack up now?
Well, there's a huge number of liquidations and insolvency still in the construction sector. I see that coming through every day in the government's gazette. You know, just a number of bankruptcies, receiverships, administrations, liquidations and you know also when you do get reports about businesses that cannot cope financially. They'll often the liquidators or receivers or insolvency practitioners will
often refer back to COVID. You know, we sort of fill up, we're out of that, but actually the ramifications on those businesses are still continuing. And they also quite often cite the downturn in the housing market, and they talk about the price escalation in terms of labor costs and material and actually even getting some of the materials sometimes can be very difficult, so the pre sales, you know,
there's so many pressures. We have a housing shortage, but we also have a lot of problems within the building sector attempting to resolve that housing shortage by building more residences, be it standalone houses or apartments or townhouses. And a lot of those companies are under a lot of pressure.
Yet inflation is falling. How long will the outlook be?
Tough?
Is when I talk to people in the sector, they're very happy about interest rates coming down and inflation war under control, and they do see a lot of signs of regeneration in the sector. But in terms of the future, I don't have any clever want pass.
Sorry, you've recently reported on the saga involving Seascape, which is meant to be the country's biggest apartment building. Can you tell us what's going on there?
Yes, a fifty six level towel which is already up but not yet fully clad and certainly not fitted out inside. So this is a dispute between the developer, Shindy Customs, and the builder, China Construction. Now, China Construction took Shindy Customs to the Building Disputes Tribe and won award for thirty three million dollars and also charging orders which would
actually stop Shandy settling the sales of their apartments. And in response to that, the developer has launched high court action against China Construction seeking that that decision be set aside. So it hasn't yet concluded, but we know that China Construction asked all the subcontractors I think there were more than twenty to remove everything from the site that they had there and also not to return to the site.
So that occurred in August, and again it's another good example of a stress in the sector because there were a lot of companies that are owed money by China Construction. China Construction says that cannot pay them until the developer of this fifty six level one hundred and eighty something meter tower actually pays them. So that's a very difficult situation.
Perhaps some lessons to be learned from this.
Yes, well watch the space, see what comes out of it. There'll be further high court action, we think in the next few weeks.
And issues like this can't be good for the mental health of the employers either.
They're under a lot of pressure, sometimes from non payment or sometimes from payments lagging, and that means that it's very difficult for them. And sometimes word can filter down from the boss class to the worker class that things are quite unstable, and that doesn't help anyone's mental health. You know, if people fear for their jobs or fear for the health of the company that they're working for, that leaves them feeling even more uncertain and under more pressure.
These people are often, you know, the bread winners for the family and that pay check is being relied on, and if there's some threat hanging over that, it puts a lot of stress on the employee, but obviously the employer as well.
If you can help shoulder some of his burden or share some of his problems.
One seen is a tough guy's industry. To take a concrete pill and harden up attitude.
With prevalent, we are six times more likely to lose one of the crew to suicide than to a workplace exibit. So when you put that in perspective of all health and safety program you can see the important.
And the construction sector sounds like it needs to get a handle on sorting out the concerns raised in the survey. Would that mean they can attract more talent into the sector.
That's for sure, and MATE says it's out to change this in this tragedy of suicide, and it says it has already reached more than eighty five thousand people in the sector, and it's got a volunteer network which I found an astonishing figure five thousand plus in the sector trained in suicide prevention. So it's already getting on with things and addressing what is a real tragedy. They've got an O eight one hundred number at Mates and Construction.
So if you have any fears you're under stress or pressure, or perhaps a family member or someone you know is suffering, the over eight hundred number is eight hundred triple one, three, one five. Give them a call. They're they're to help. They're doing all they can.
Some pretty disturbing figures there and in a concerning time for a lot of people. Thanks for joining us.
Thank you.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at inset, here all, dot co, dot endzet. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells. Patty Fox is a sound engineer. I'm Susie Nordquist. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.