CFMEU deal helps add 10pc to apartment costs

The CFMEU’s new NSW wages deal and rising building costs will add 10 per cent to the cost of new apartments, more than double the rate of inflation, threatening the state’s targets to build affordable homes.

Quantity surveyor Rider Levett Bucknall found the construction union’s latest deal, which delivers a record 7 per cent pay rise this year, would lift labour costs on projects by up to 19 per cent in its first year alone.