“We’ve knocked back about $7 billion worth of work just this year.”

That jaw-dropping confession from Scott Hutchinson, chairman of Australia’s largest privately-owned construction company, paints a telling picture.

And, clearly, the view from the industry’s top tier is no postcard to send home.

Rather, it is a grim panorama of an industry still reeling from pandemic-induced challenges—notably supply chain disruptions, materials shortages and cost escalation—and is now grappling with a dire lack of capacity to deliver a massive national pipeline of public and private projects.

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