Subbies' fight for survival trumps tussle over the price of utes

It might be the wielding of dangerous tools.

But in Parliament House on Tuesday, amid all the usual big house power plays and bluster, a group of subbies came begging as they faced hitting the wall as builders collapse around them.

Anthony Lloyd from the Fyshwick-based Lloyds Building and Construction apologised for his emotion and went so far as to warn construction was "doomed in Australia."

The long-running problem is that subcontractors are not prioritised when builders go into administration.

"There's people behind me that are not going to have a business, people that can't put food on the table and why? The question is 'why', they ask," he said. "They've done nothing wrong. They couldn't do anything different."

"I'm sick of looking over the shoulders. There's people that had some very hard mental times ... it is taking a big mental capacity from everyone."

For the subcontractors, there is no bigger story going than how they are being ripped off. While construction demand is taking off and there are signs of huge developments and new suburbs, four high-profile ACT builders have gone under in the past two months. Two in the past week.

"It's a domino effect because they don't pay us, we can't pay them. And there are more businesses going down and more and more and more," Chris Nowaczyk from joinery business The Works warned.

The Murray review of security of payment laws looked into this very subject six years ago, but the recommendations for new security of payment laws and enhancing other protections for subcontractors are yet to go anywhere.

While facing ruin, this group of tradies is more powerful than they realise and this political currency will only grow as the next election date looms.

In another part of Parliament House, the major parties are arguing over the price of the utes as Australia settles on long overdue new vehicle efficiency standards.

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The subbies who came up the hill on Monday are more worried about feeding families than listening to any overcharged talk of a ute or tradie tax. They are not buying new vehicles if they go bankrupt.

"It sounds insane doesn't it?" Charne Esterhuizen from Astor Air Conditioning said. "To think that we actually have to pay additional, additional, additional, additional and also not get paid because builders get away with everything. So we cannot think about being sustainable if we have no support."

"If there are utes or if there are things available that we can be more sustainable, we'd be more than likely to have acceptance of that. But there's no support. Like there's no people looking after us."

The tradies need to trade on what they really want.