What rework, cost overruns, missed claims, disputes and lapsed compliance cost a construction contractor

What it is. 14.2% of original contract value, cost of design errors, direct and indirect, as estimated by survey respondents.

Sample. Questionnaire survey of 139 Australian projects. The 2012 paper gives a mean direct design error cost of 6.85% and a mean indirect cost of 7.36% of contract value; the 2014 paper gives a mean design error cost of 14.2%. 6.85 plus 7.36 is 14.21, so the two appear to describe the same sample, which the abstracts do not state outright.

What it is not. Respondents' estimates of design error cost, not measured cost records, and the abstracts do not say who carried the cost (contractor, designer or client), so it is filed as money at stake and not as contractor loss. Abstracts only: the full texts were not read. The 2012 abstract says cost did not vary significantly by project type, while the 2014 abstract reports significant differences by type, which the abstracts do not reconcile. The 2012 abstract does not name the country, so that source is filed as unknown; Australia rests on the two 2014 abstracts, which both say 139 Australian projects, and neither names the states or says how the projects were drawn, so how national the sample is cannot be told from them. It is larger than the 12.3% total rework cost the same group reports for 161 projects, so it is a cost of design errors and their effects, not a share of rework. That the 2012 and 2014 papers share one sample rests on the matching 139 and the sum 14.21, not on a statement.

Where it came from

• Love, Lopez, Kim & Kim (2014), Probabilistic assessment of design error costs
  abstract, as held in the Curtin University repository record (read through its mirror at cendekia.unisza.edu.my/neuaxis-e/Record/curtin-20.500.11937-10591/Details); the ASCE page was not opened and the full text was not read · source record
• Lopez & Love (2012), Design Error Costs in Construction Projects
  abstract, as held in the Curtin University repository record (read through its mirror at cendekia.unisza.edu.my/neuaxis-e/Record/curtin-20.500.11937-10508/Details); the ASCE page returned 403 and the full text was not read · source record

Considered and set aside

• Love, Lopez, Kim & Kim: Reports the same 14.2% for the same 139 Australian projects in a second paper by the same group, so it is the same sample read again, not independent corroboration.
• Love, Edwards & Smith: A survey of 161 Australian projects that found no significant relationship between contract documentation and rework cost. It gives no share of contract value for documentation, so it does not give a figure for this cause.
• Australian Constructors Association and Consult Australia: Says late design changes and unclear scope drive cost into major projects, with no figure, sample or data source.

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What it is. 12.3% of total contract value, direct plus indirect.

Sample. National survey of 161 construction professionals about recently completed Australian projects. Mixed sectors.

What it is not. A perception survey. Design consultants' and project managers' estimates differed significantly. A 'total of 10%' appeared only in a search snippet, not the abstract, so it is not cited from this paper.

Our arithmetic. 6.4% direct + 5.9% indirect = 12.3% (both from the abstract; the sum is ours)

Where it came from

• Love & Edwards (2005), Calculating total rework costs in Australian construction projects
  abstract · source record

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What it is. 10% of contract value, including indirect costs.

Sample. Questionnaire survey covering 115 Australian civil infrastructure projects. The only peer-reviewed figure specific to civil work.

What it is not. Respondents' estimates, not measured cost records. Rework amount correlated significantly with cost and schedule growth (p<0.01).

Where it came from

• Love, Edwards, Watson & Davis (2010), Rework in Civil Infrastructure Projects: Determination of Cost Predictors
  abstract · source record

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What it is. Per defect, total rectification cost to all parties (owner, builder, insurer and others), as estimated by dwelling owners; excludes owners' time and other costs.

Sample. Owners' estimates from a survey of 1,606 residential dwellings in all eight states and territories, Census-weighted, 2,574 defects reported. Of the 1,605 dwellings analysed, 1,231 are detached houses with 1,969 defects reported. The report's total cost per defect, including owners' time and other costs, is $4,366 for detached houses.

What it is not. Owners' own estimates, not invoices, and the cost is the owner side (the buyer's cost of putting a defect right), not the contractor's loss, which depends on warranty and who pays. Houses, not civil works. The average covers every defect owners reported, including some the CIE weights as caused by maintenance or alteration rather than the initial build (1,024 of 1,969 detached-house defects are weighted as initial-build). The text calls the $3,440 a cost per dwelling in one sentence, but Table 2.17 and the total-cost line give it per defect. The report does not state the price year of the estimates; 2021 is the report's date. Workmanship is not separated from design and approval failures in this figure.

Where it came from

• Centre for International Economics (for the Australian Building Codes Board) (2021), Building Confidence Report, A case for intervention
  Section 2.5 (Table 2.5), Tables 2.8 to 2.10, 2.16 and 2.17 (printed pages 24 to 36), executive summary Table 1 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Love, Matthews & Mahamivanan: Gives a mean non-conformance cost of 0.41% of contract value on infrastructure, but the abstract does not name the country, so it cannot fill an Australian cell.
• Love, Ika, Ahiaga-Dagbui, Locatelli & Sing: Recorded rework of 0.39% of contract value at one Australian contractor, but it is not split by cause and its ledgers undercount quality failures.

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What it is. Incidence and profit impact, not a share of contract value.

Sample. 98 projects with complete cost data (of 346 projects and 19,605 rework events), one contractor, six years of ledger data, public and private clients, building and infrastructure.

What it is not. Recorded rework was only 0.39% of contract value - the ledgers undercount. Margins were 6-9%, which is why 0.39% wiped out roughly a quarter of yearly profit. The 2018 paper on the same data reports 28%; cite one and say which.

Where it came from

• Love, Ika, Ahiaga-Dagbui, Locatelli & Sing (2019), Make-or-break during production: shedding light on change-orders, rework and contractors margin in construction
  abstract; results p.11 of the accepted manuscript · source record

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What it is. 23.4% of original contract value, cost of design errors on the civil engineering projects in the sample, as estimated by survey respondents.

Sample. The civil engineering subgroup of the 139 Australian projects in design_error_cost_au. The abstract does not give how many of the 139 were civil. Fit-out projects averaged 22.50% and projects above A$101 million 26.18%.

What it is not. Graded low because the subgroup size is not in the abstract, and the 2012 abstract on what appears to be the same sample says cost did not vary significantly by project type. Respondents' estimates, not cost records, and the carrier of the cost is not stated. Abstract only; full text not read. Whether the sampled civil projects were road, rail or utilities is not stated.

Where it came from

• Love, Lopez, Kim & Kim (2014), Probabilistic assessment of design error costs
  abstract, as held in the Curtin University repository record (read through its mirror at cendekia.unisza.edu.my/neuaxis-e/Record/curtin-20.500.11937-10591/Details); the ASCE page was not opened and the full text was not read · source record

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What it is. Per defect, rectification cost in an apartment building; owners' own costs scaled to total cost to all parties by the CIE; excludes owners' time and other costs.

Sample. Apartment owners' personal rectification cost averaged $8,494; the CIE multiplied it by the detached-house ratio of total cost to personal cost, about 1.10, to give $9,349 (Table 2.17 and the text above it). The report's total cost per apartment defect, including owners' time and other costs, is $12,238. Waterproofing in apartments averaged $19,648 a defect and flammable cladding $34,375, the latter set from one VCAT judgment on the Lacrosse Tower.

What it is not. Graded low because the CIE did not use apartment owners' reported total cost: respondents confused the cost to the whole building with their own unit's, so it scaled personal cost by the detached-house ratio. Owner side, not the contractor's loss, and residential apartments rather than civil works. Owners' estimates, covering every defect reported, including some weighted as caused by maintenance or alteration. The report does not state the price year; 2021 is the report's date.

Where it came from

• Centre for International Economics (for the Australian Building Codes Board) (2021), Building Confidence Report, A case for intervention
  Section 2.5 (Table 2.5), Tables 2.8 to 2.10, 2.16 and 2.17 (printed pages 24 to 36), executive summary Table 1 · source record

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What it is. None - Australian sources measure material waste in tonnes and name over-ordering as a practice, but none gives a cost of wrong quantity, wrong type, or wrong sequence.

Sample. Searches: "Australian construction material waste over-ordering percent of material purchased cost study", "Australian residential construction site material wastage percent over-ordering study", "National Waste Report 2022 construction and demolition waste", and the Love-group rework searches listed under the scope_change record, read for procurement and sequencing content. Frequencies that exist but are not a cost: wasted material averaged 141 kg per square metre, 22% of material weight, on the GBCA sample; the GBCA methodology note says industry practice is a 10% over-order, with no source; the national construction and demolition diversion rate is about 64%.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. GBCA prices waste at up to about $384 per square metre, but by assuming wasted material costs the same as used material and counting all waste, not only over-ordering, wrong type or rework. That is a valuation of waste, not a cost of this cause. The 10% over-order is an unsourced statement of practice. A vendor blog seen only in search results claims 10 to 15% waste on purchased material; it was not opened and cites no study. No source read measures temporary-works failures or sequencing error cost.

Where it came from

• Green Building Council of Australia (2025), Australia's Waste[d] Opportunity 2025
  pages 4 and 5 (cost of wasted materials per square metre and per apartment), and the methodology note on over-ordering · source record

Considered and set aside

• Ratnasabapathy, Perera, Alashwal & Lord: 10 Australian residential projects. Waste quantities and diversion rates, no cost and no cause.
• Ratnasabapathy, Alashwal & Perera: National diversion rate of 64% and 12 residential projects. Quantities only.
• Love, Matthews & Mahamivanan: Names processes and methods not followed and defective materials as root causes of non-conformances on infrastructure, with a mean rework cost of 0.30% of contract value, but the abstract does not name the country and does not split cost by cause.
• Before You Dig Australia (prepared by Clear Ridge Consulting): Mentions resumption costs when work stops at an unexpected asset, in words only, with no figure for them.
• Love, Ika, Ahiaga-Dagbui, Locatelli & Sing: Recorded rework of 0.39% of contract value at one Australian contractor, reported as a total per project with no breakdown by cause in the manuscript.
• Love & Edwards: Direct 6.4% and indirect 5.9% rework from 161 Australian projects; no split by cause.
• Love & Li: Two Australian projects, rework 3.15% and 2.40% of contract value; names client change and contract documentation as the main causes, not procurement or sequencing.
• Love: 161 projects. Finds rework did not vary with procurement method, which is the contract route, not wrong or late buying.
• Centre for International Economics (for the Australian Building Codes Board): Defect cost per defect in housing; attributes defects to initial build or to maintenance, with no split for procurement.

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What it is. None - Australian studies name client and end-user change as a main cause of rework and measure change-order value, but none gives the cost of the work lost.

Sample. Searches: "Love Edwards rework Australian construction design change causes percentage of contract value", "rework client-initiated changes cost percentage contract value Australia questionnaire change orders", "Make-or-break during production change-orders rework contractors margin", "Infrastructure Australia OR Australian Constructors Association cost of rework design changes major projects", "Australia latent conditions variation cost percent of contract value", "Love 2002 influence of project type and procurement method on rework costs", "Off the rails cost performance of infrastructure rail projects scope changes". Infrastructure Australia and Productivity Commission material turned up in searches only and gave no cost of lost work. Frequencies and values that exist but are not a cost of lost work: change-orders averaged 10.6% of original contract value on 67 Australian public infrastructure projects of one contractor (11% of work value 2011 to 2014); in the 98-project sample, where change-order data existed for 67 projects, they were 3.6% of awarded value. Those are the value of additional or altered work the client pays for, not rework.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. A change-order is usually paid work and mostly revenue to the contractor, so its share of contract value is not a loss, and no Australian source read gives the cost of work done and then lost to a change. Every peer-reviewed Australian rework source found comes from one research group and mostly from perception surveys, or from one contractor's records.

Where it came from

• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu (2017), Cost Performance of Public Infrastructure Projects: The Nemesis and Nirvana of Change-Orders · free copy
  Table 2; accepted manuscript, Change-Orders section · source record

Considered and set aside

• Love, Ika, Ahiaga-Dagbui, Locatelli & Sing: Accepted manuscript opened and searched for change and cause content. 98 projects of one contractor. A footnote records that data on rework arising from change-orders and design omissions was not made available, so it cannot say what change cost in lost work.
• Love & Li: Two Australian projects with rework at 3.15% and 2.40% of contract value. Names client and end-user changes as a main cause but gives no cost for it.
• Love & Sohal: The same two projects, same result: cause named, no cost per cause.
• Love & Sohal: 161 Australian projects. Client-initiated change is a significant regression predictor of total rework cost, with no money figure for it.
• Love & Edwards: Same 161-project survey, same predictors, no share of rework or of contract value attributed to change.
• Love: 161 projects. Reports rework as 52% of cost growth and 26% of its variance, shares of cost growth rather than of contract value, and not split by cause.
• Love, Edwards & Smith: Looks at contract documentation, not change, and finds no significant link with rework.
• Love & Edwards: 161 projects, direct 6.4% and indirect 5.9% of contract value in total; not split by cause.
• Australian Constructors Association and Consult Australia: Says late design changes drive cost and time pressure, with no figure or data source.

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What it is. Per reported utility strike, direct cost of repairing the damaged asset only; indirect and social costs excluded.

Sample. A direct cost per strike that the industry body advised as conservative and the report used to price about 15,276 strikes reported a year by the 26 largest network operators ($137.5 million a year). The 16 case studies it examined (four each in gas, energy, water and telecommunications) averaged $26,732 in direct cost, which the report says is likely higher than the average strike. Including indirect and social costs, the report puts the total at $4.6 billion a year, about 32.4 times the direct cost.

What it is not. An advised planning figure used as a model input, not an observed mean. The cost is the asset owner's repair cost: the utility bears it unless it recovers it from whoever caused the damage, so it is the contractor's exposure only where that recovery is made, and it is not the contractor's loss. It excludes the contractor's own standing-time and reinstatement costs, delay, and the societal cost of the outage. Strikes by pipe, cable or sector differ widely (telecommunications repairs in the case studies were the largest). The report gives no price year for the $9,000 (it escalates its case-study costs to 2024), so 2024 is the report's date. The strike count covers reported strikes only, which the report thinks is two to three times fewer than the strikes that happen. The report's own basis for the $9,000 is "BYDA data and experience" (Appendix C), with no records shown.

Where it came from

• Before You Dig Australia (prepared by Clear Ridge Consulting) (2024), Economic Assessment of Utility Strikes in Australia
  Section 3.3 (Table 1, 16 case studies) and Section 3.4 (Table 3 and the extrapolation), report pages 5 to 8, and Appendix C for the basis of the $9,000 · source record

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What it is. None: New Zealand sources give how often documents have gaps and how often design is blamed for defects, not what it costs.

Sample. Search terms: New Zealand construction design errors documentation cost percent of contract value; BRANZ consent documentation quality; design defects rework cost New Zealand; New Zealand design change cost estimators; cost of defects causes design workmanship. A frequency exists but is not a cost: BRANZ inspectors found that in 43% of 52 sets of new-house consent drawings not all details were provided and in 31% uplift fixing details were missing (SR355, section 5); and ER49 Table 2 (from BRANZ inspections) attributes 12% of defects found to poor or incomplete design against 52% to poor workmanship.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: the New Zealand sources read count documents with gaps and defects by cause, and the one New Zealand cost model prices all defects together. No figure is inferred from the cause split.

Where it came from

• BRANZ (Ian Page) (2016), Consent Documentation Quality for New Housing (BRANZ Study Report SR355)
  Abstract; section 5 Discussion · source record

Considered and set aside

• NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), for BRANZ: Prices all quality defects in new houses together (5.4% of output, modelled). Table 2 attributes 12% of defects found in inspections to poor or incomplete design, which is a share of defects, not of cost.
• BRANZ: Summary of the same model; lists poor design as one direct cause of defects and gives no cost for it.
• PricewaterhouseCoopers, for the Department of Building and Housing: Prices the leaky-building bill (NZ$11.3 billion, 2008 dollars) as a whole and does not split design from workmanship or materials; design fees appear only as a claimant transaction cost ($15,000 for a full reclad).
• Atapattu, Domingo & Sutrisna: Estimators name inadequate tender documentation and frequent design changes among the three most critical cost factors; a perception ranking with no cost magnitude in the abstract, and the full text was not available.
• Massey University (Asadi, Wilkinson, Rotimi): Rates how well the standard contract addresses rework causes, with errors in design, drawings and specifications and incomplete design among five scored adequate (Table 3, means 3.50 and 3.39 on a 5-point scale); contract coverage, not cost. The 25% of contract value rework figure it quotes comes from earlier international literature.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Notes that policy-driven added scope and design requirements raise infrastructure cost; compares unit costs and attributes no share to design or documentation.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Names an under-estimated initial cost and governance as contributors to the motorway overrun; no design-error or documentation figure.
• BRANZ (Roman Jaques): Contractors link non-standard design and inaccurate detailing (15%) to material waste; measures waste causes by respondent share, no cost.
• The Conversation (Mark Kirby, Auckland University of Technology): Opinion piece; its nearly-10% loss figure misreads the NZIER GDP effect as a defect cost and gives no design-specific number.

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What it is. None: New Zealand sources measure waste by mass or volume and rank planning as a cost factor, and none prices wrong or surplus orders as a share of project cost.

Sample. Search terms: BRANZ construction waste New Zealand over-ordering materials percent; wrong materials ordered rework New Zealand; temporary works failure cost New Zealand; construction procurement supply chain delay cost percent of project New Zealand; Construction Sector Accord procurement. A frequency exists but is not a cost: AUT's scoping study puts construction and demolition waste at about 40% of New Zealand landfill, with estimates of 30% to 50% by source, and names over-ordering of wet concrete as a source of concrete waste (ER82). A BRANZ and EBOSS supplier survey of freight cost and delays turned up in search but was not opened.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: waste by mass, landfill share and contractors' own waste percentages by material (1998 to 1999) are not a cost as a share of project value, and are not filed as one.

Where it came from

• Auckland University of Technology, for BRANZ (2023), Understanding waste generation in the New Zealand construction sector: Scoping study (BRANZ External Research Report ER82)
  Executive Summary (key issue 1); concrete waste section; supply-chain material · source record

Considered and set aside

• BRANZ (Roman Jaques): Contractors estimate material waste by material (for example plasterboard 5% to 15%) in 1998; 38 Wellington-area respondents, an estimate of quantity wasted, not cost, and dated.
• BRANZ (Roman Jaques): 84 Auckland respondents; non-standard sizing (53%) is the main cause of waste named by contractors; quantities and perceptions, no cost.
• Massey University (Asadi, Wilkinson, Rotimi): Materials and equipment and process causes of rework are among those the standard contract covers; clause coverage, no cost.
• Atapattu, Domingo & Sutrisna: Poor planning and scheduling is among the three most critical cost factors for New Zealand transport projects; a perception ranking with no magnitude (abstract only).
• NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), for BRANZ: Table 2 prints BRANZ inspection results of 12% for materials and 12% for construction methods (builders' opinion 7% and 14%); shares of defects as printed, and the model prices defects as a whole.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Discusses procurement and delivery capability as drivers of unit cost; benchmarking of unit costs, no share attributable to wrong quantities, sequencing or temporary works.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: The builder not anticipating the consenting system is named as a contributor; no figure.
• SCIRT Learning Legacy: Describes the Christchurch rebuild procurement model and its $2.2 billion total; no planning, over-order or sequencing cost.

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What it is. 5.4% of the output of the residential construction industry ($995 million of $18.43 billion, central case): the modelled cost of rectifying quality defects found during construction, from a 90% defect prevalence (informed by New Zealand surveys of new houses) and an assumed 6% average cost per defective job (set from overseas studies).

Range 2.6% to 8.6% (scenario)

Sample. A computable general equilibrium study (NZIER, ORANI-NZ) for BRANZ. Inputs: 90% prevalence (85% to 95%), 6% average cost of a defect (3% to 9%), residential output $18.43 billion for 2018. The 90% rests on BRANZ new-house quality surveys (92% of 225 houses in 2014 had a quality or appearance defect; 96% had a compliance defect at the first inspection); the 6% is set from the literature review, which cites Australian and UK studies of rework or defect cost averaging 2.4% to 6.4% of contract value (UK 5.8%; Australia 2.4% and 3.15%, 4.1% with a 3.0% to 11.2% range, and 6.4% direct and 5.6% indirect). Cost $995 million central, $420 million to $1,744 million across the range.

What it is not. A model, not observed rework. Only the prevalence is informed by New Zealand data; the average cost of a defect is an assumption taken from overseas studies, and the report assumes those estimates apply to New Zealand. The 5.4% is prevalence times average cost (0.90 x 6%), applied to all residential construction output, including the residential share (45%) of construction services; the report scopes the study to defects found during construction of new houses but assumes non-new work has the same prevalence. Out of scope by the report's own list: civil and non-residential work, alterations and maintenance, undiscovered defects, leaky buildings and earthquake repair. It is an industry-wide resource cost that the report says falls on builders but is priced into construction costs, so it is not the loss of any one contractor. The denominator is industry output, not a contract value, so it is filed as ratio_of_other and is not multiplied by a job value. The range is the report's low and high scenarios (ER49 Table 7: 2.6%, 5.4%, 8.6%; Appendix Table 13 agrees); ER49's own Table 8 and the BRANZ summary's Table 2 both print the 2.6% and 5.4% in the wrong columns.

Where it came from

• NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), for BRANZ (2020), The Economic Cost of Quality Defects (BRANZ External Research Report ER49)
  Table 7 (p.22), Table 8 and Table 9 (p.24) · source record
• BRANZ (2021), BRANZ Research Now Quality #2: The economic cost of defects in new residential buildings in New Zealand
  Table 2 (p.2): confirms the $995 million central estimate · source record

Considered and set aside

• PricewaterhouseCoopers, for the Department of Building and Housing: Prices the leaky-building repair bill (NZ$11.3 billion in 2008 dollars, 42,000 failing dwellings built 1992 to 2008), which ER49 puts out of scope. The report does not split failures between design, workmanship and materials and 69% of the cost falls on owners, so it is not rework by a builder and is not filed under any cause.
• The Conversation (Mark Kirby, Auckland University of Technology): Presents the $2.5 billion as nearly 10% of sector value lost to quality failure. In the NZIER study $2.5 billion is a GDP effect in the economy-wide model, not a cost of defects, so the 10% is not used.

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What it is. None: New Zealand sources rank change as a cause of rework or cost growth but give no cost, and the one national benchmarking dataset has no New Zealand overrun data.

Sample. Search terms: New Zealand construction variations change orders cost percent of contract value; NZS 3910 rework variation survey; design change cost New Zealand infrastructure; Auditor-General Treasury variations contract value New Zealand; Transmission Gully cost scope change. A frequency or ranking exists but is not a cost: New Zealand estimators name frequent design changes among the three most critical cost factors (Atapattu 2023, abstract only), and Asadi 2023 (80 completed responses) scores changes first among the rework causes the standard contract addresses (Table 3, mean 3.83 of 5), a rating of contract coverage. The Asadi paper quotes rework of up to 25% of contract value from earlier international work.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: no New Zealand source read measures the cost of client or design change, abortive work or change orders that caused rework. Variation values for Australia exist in the corpus but do not apply to New Zealand.

Where it came from

• Massey University (Asadi, Wilkinson, Rotimi) (2023), Mixed-Method Approach to Evaluate Rework Provisions within New Zealand Construction Contracts · free copy
  Abstract; Introduction (rework cost paragraph); Method (81 respondents); Table 3 (causes of rework addressed by the contract) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Atapattu, Domingo & Sutrisna: Estimators name frequent design changes among the three most critical cost factors on New Zealand transport projects; a perception ranking with no cost magnitude in the abstract, full text unavailable.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Says added scope and design requirements raise infrastructure unit costs and that overrun analysis is outside its scope; no figure.
• Oxford Global Projects, for Te Waihanga: Overrun reference classes are international; the report states New Zealand estimated-versus-actual data were lacking, and it does not attribute overruns to scope change.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Summary names estimate accuracy, governance, consenting and external events; it does not quantify or separate scope or design change.
• SCIRT Learning Legacy: Describes the Christchurch rebuild as having an evolving scope; reports the $2.2 billion programme total, no change or rework cost.
• BRANZ (Roman Jaques): Architects and quantity surveyors rate avoiding variations on site as a way to cut waste; 38 respondents, opinions only, no cost.
• BRANZ (Roman Jaques): Repeats that buildable design avoiding variations reduces waste; 84 respondents, opinions only, no cost.
• NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), for BRANZ: Prices defects found during construction as a whole; client or end-user change is not separated and is outside the defect definition.

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What it is. None: New Zealand sources count utility strikes or describe ground and weather costs qualitatively; none gives a cost per strike or a share of contract value.

Sample. Search terms: Before U Dig New Zealand utility strikes annual cost per strike; NZ Utilities Advisory Group strikes; Waka Kotahi utility strike research; SCIRT service strikes cost; New Zealand weather delays construction cost; Transmission Gully ground conditions cost; setting-out survey error cost New Zealand. A frequency exists but is not a cost: in a 2020 survey, 34 respondents reported 60 utility damage incidents in 2019 tied to missing or inaccurate as-built drawings and 50 for other reasons (Maree 2021, section 4.3); the same paper fits a line to those counts and says about 8 to 9 strikes per 100 excavations, a frequency from a 34-respondent sample, not a cost. Vendor blogs quote a New Zealand strike count (12,861 in 2020) and per-strike costs built on a UK multiplier; they were not opened at source and are not used. The Auditor-General's 2016 SCIRT report and MBIE weathertightness statistics were blocked to automated access and not read.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: the New Zealand strike statistics found are counts of incidents or enquiries. Australian damage costs per strike in the corpus do not apply to New Zealand.

Where it came from

• Massey University (Maree, Rotimi, Rotimi) (2021), The Primacy of As-Built Drawings in the Management of Underground Utility Operations: A New Zealand Study
  Section 3 (method), section 4.3 (utilities damage records), Table 1 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Before U Dig (BUD): Reports 186,614 enquiries lodged in 2022 and 186 asset owners; publishes no national strike counts or costs.
• NZ Transport Agency, via the SCIRT Learning Legacy: Says tenders will ask for service-strike performance and that damage must be monitored; no strike counts or costs.
• SCIRT Learning Legacy: Christchurch rebuild summary with the $2.2 billion programme total; no strike, ground or weather cost.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: States tunnelling in difficult ground can cost up to three times as much as in favourable ground; an international tunnelling comparison, not a New Zealand share of contract value and not about ground differing from the record.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Lists external events (earthquake, weather, COVID-19) among contributors to the overrun; no figure and no separation of ground conditions.
• Oxford Global Projects, for Te Waihanga: Says New Zealand estimated-versus-actual cost data were lacking, so no New Zealand overrun benchmark or cause split exists in it.
• PricewaterhouseCoopers, for the Department of Building and Housing: Prices the leaky-building repair bill (NZ$11.3 billion, 2008 dollars); those are building defects, not weather or ground conditions, and the report does not split them by cause.
• NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), for BRANZ: Prices construction defects in new houses; setting-out error and weather damage are not separated.

rework/site_conditions_none_nz · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 5% of total construction cost, direct rework only.

Sample. The paper analyses 359 projects in the CII database, mostly US industrial and commercial.

What it is not. The 5% is the abstract's opening framing, not the paper's own measured result, and who bears the cost is not measured.

Where it came from

• Hwang, Thomas, Haas & Caldas (2009), Measuring the Impact of Rework on Construction Cost Performance
  abstract, read on TRID: https://trid.trb.org/view/884832 · source record

rework/rework_field_direct_framing · US · F41, F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 0.38% of contract value, direct cost only, as recorded pre-completion.

Sample. One contractor's project data, collected by its quality managers. Adding post-completion corrections raises the average to 0.76%.

What it is not. SECONDARY - the paper itself returned 403 and was read through ASCE's news write-up. The article gives no sample size, country or sector. The same study found actual costs underreported by around 300%, which is the number that matters here: most rework is never written down as rework.

Where it came from

• Love (2026), Quantifying the Costs of Field Rework in Construction second-hand
  abstract, as reported · source record
  Read via: ASCE Civil Engineering Source, 22 Jan 2026: https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/article/2026/01/22/how-much-does-field-rework-in-construction-actually-cost (the paper itself returned 403)

rework/rework_recorded_in_ledgers · unknown · unknown ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 23% of original contract value, final versus original.

Sample. 16 rail projects by a single contractor, AU$0.5b+, mostly WA, 2011-2014. Scope changes accounted for 99% of the cost increase; lump-sum projects that overran averaged 12.83%.

What it is not. Mostly scope variations the owner paid, not contractor losses. Median 12.3% against a mean of 23%, so a few projects dominate. Recorded as money_at_stake for that reason.

Where it came from

• Love, Zhou, Edwards, Irani & Sing (2017), Off the rails: The cost performance of infrastructure rail projects
  abstract, p.1 and Table 2 of the open-access preprint · source record

overrun/overrun_contract_award_rail · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 7% of contract value, final profit at completion: the 9% tendered margin plus a further 7% (a 16-point swing).

Sample. 28 completed mega projects over A$500m, Australia, commenced 2000 to 2015, road, rail, water and social infrastructure, PPP and design-and-construct, from Tier 1 contractors' open-book project data.

What it is not. Megaprojects only: the paper excluded projects under A$500m because most of them made money, so this is not the loss on a typical civil job. The sample is selected for risk (PPP and D&C, alliances excluded). Grattan 2021, which cited it, doubts it: 'The study does not explain why shareholders would tolerate such a pattern of losses.'

Our arithmetic. Table 1, Total row: tendered profit A$3,328m at 9%, so contract value about A$37.0b; final profit A$(2,681)m, about (7.2%). The paper states the same result as "its original 9% profit margin plus a further deterioration of 7%" (abstract). Its "net profit (16%)" is final minus tendered, by its own definition on p.12, so it is not the loss as a share of contract value.

Where it came from

• Ryan & Duffield (2017), Contractor Performance on Mega Projects - Avoiding the Pitfalls · free copy
  Table 1, Total row (pp.12-13); definition of net profit (p.12); abstract (p.1) · source record

History

• 2026-09-25 Read at source for the first time (previously second-hand via Grattan 2021). The paper gives the final result as a share of contract value, so the figure moves from an unquantified margin swing to a 7% loss; the grade moves from low (second-hand) to moderate (a sample selected for risk).

overrun/overrun_contractor_margin_swing · AU · F41, F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 13.8% of the state's budgeted capital expenditure for the year, all portfolios.

Sample. The whole Queensland Government capital program, compiled by the Queensland Audit Office from state capital statements. 16.4% in 2022-23; about 15% a year on average since.

What it is not. The state's money, not a contractor's, and a spending variance for the year, not the cost growth of any project: spending can run ahead of budget because work is brought forward as well as because it costs more. The QAO restated the 2022-23 figure between reports (14% in 2023, 16.4% in 2024).

Where it came from

• Queensland Audit Office (2025), Major projects 2024 (Report 9: 2024-25) · free copy
  'Report on a page'; Chapter 2, commentary on Figure 2B, p.5 · source record

overrun/overrun_qld_capital_spend_vs_budget · AU-QLD · F41, F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 24% of the first publicly promised cost, final versus promised.

Sample. 836 Australian transport projects of $20m or more, 2001-2016; $28 billion over in total; 34% of projects went over.

What it is not. Measured from the first promise, mostly before any contractor is signed, and paid by the owner (the taxpayer). The median overrun is 0%: a few projects dominate the mean.

Where it came from

• Terrill & Danks (Grattan Institute) (2016), Cost overruns in transport infrastructure
  PDF pp.9, 29 · source record

overrun/overrun_transport_australia_promised · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 25% of the first publicly announced cost: the average increase needed once an announcement made before any formal budget commitment was scrutinised in the budget process.

Sample. Australian transport projects completed between 2001 and 2015, from the Investment Monitor database (Grattan Institute 2016). The 25% applies to projects whose first cost was announced before a formal budget commitment, which are 32% of projects and 74% of the value of overruns; after the budget commitment their costs rose by a further 26%. The text does not give the number of projects behind the 25%.

What it is not. An owner's early public estimate, not a contractor's tender price: the client's money, and mostly before any contractor was signed. Grattan describes these as politicians' promised costs made before a budget commitment, and says they "need to be upwardly revised by an average of 25 per cent" once scrutinised: an average of revisions, with no stated sample, not a measured tender shortfall. It covers only announcements made ahead of a budget commitment and is from transport projects of $20m or more, not civil work generally. It is a stated average with no sample size. The report says early announcements are made for electoral reasons, not that the estimates were wrong because contractors priced short. The contractor's side of tender pricing has no national figure here.

Where it came from

• Terrill & Danks (Grattan Institute) (2016), Cost overruns in transport infrastructure
  Chapter 2, p.16 (text beside Figure 2.1) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Victorian Auditor-General's Office: Victoria only. Four VicRoads design-and-construct projects finished 0% to 9% over approved budget (3% on average, Figure 2C, p.12) and one public sector comparator was revised up 45%: a handful of owner-side budgets in one state, so it cannot fill the national cell.
• Ryan & Duffield: Contractors' own open-book data on 28 megaprojects: tendered margin 9% became a 7% loss. It measures the whole swing from tender to completion. The paper blames bidding competitiveness and risk transfer in words but does not split the loss between underpricing at tender and what happened in delivery, so it is not a tender-pricing figure.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Gives the industry's operating profit before tax as 6.5% of total income in 2024-25 (8,631 of 132,471), the margin a short tender has to eat. That is a result for the whole industry, not a measure of how short tenders were.

overrun/tender_estimate_revision_early_announcement_au · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no Australia-wide source read gives unrecovered input price escalation as a measured share of contract value or of overrun.

Sample. Search terms: input price escalation fixed price contract; unrecovered cost increases percent of project budget; rise and fall clause; construction input price index road bridge; contractors absorbed escalation; Australian Constructors Association Arcadis survey; Infrastructure Australia market capacity input costs. Ten sources opened. A frequency exists: the ACA and Arcadis 2023 survey of builders says all respondents absorbed some unrecoverable 2022 material escalation, and for nearly half it was more than 10% of project budgets (their own estimates, once mitigations were applied), but it is a count of respondents, not a cost. The 2024 survey chart shows absorption in bands. Rates with no unit: ABS road and bridge output prices +6.0% (year to September 2026; the June 2026 quarter alone +4.5%); BITRE's alert +1.7% (year to September 2019).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: no defensible Australia-wide figure was found for unrecovered input price escalation as a share of contract value, not that none exists. The ACA and Arcadis survey is the closest measure of the cause and is people's own estimates across all construction. Its PDFs sit at a new web address from the one in the 2023 release: the original links were refused with 403 and not worked around.

Where it came from

• Australian Constructors Association and Arcadis (2023), 2023 Construction Market Sentiment Survey
  one-page infographic, 'Escalation absorption' chart; ACA release 2 May 2023 key statistics · source record

Considered and set aside

• Australian Constructors Association and Arcadis: Same survey a year on. A chart of escalation absorbed on projects during 2023 has bands (none, under 10%, 10 to 25%, over 25%) with no printed values, no sample size is stated, and it covers all construction. Reading the bar lengths would be an inference, so no figure is taken.
• Australian Constructors Association: Advocacy paper: some contractors saw supply costs rise up to 70% in a year; contractors must hold fixed prices for 12 to 18 months or even two to three years; rise and fall clauses uncommon. No measured cost to a contract. Table 1 has no printed values.
• Corinna Economic Advisory (Saul Eslake), prepared for the Civil Contractors Federation: For the 2026 oil shock: the CCF estimates 80 to 95% of civil contracts by number are fixed price; prices of bitumen, explosives and plastic pipe up 35% to 50% on anecdotal evidence. A share of contracts by count and anecdotes; the diesel scenario is filed under plant_fuel.
• Infrastructure Australia: Industry reports non-labour input price escalation of about 10 to 20% over 12 months (p.7), 51% of businesses had sought a contract variation and some build 10% variations into budgets. A sentiment range for prices, not a share of contract value lost.
• Infrastructure Australia: 68% of surveyed organisations saw non-labour input costs rise and 36% think prices have not peaked (p.37): perceptions of direction. No cost to a contract.
• Grattan Institute (Terrill, Emslie and Moran): Shows the ABS road and bridge producer price index flat 2013-16 then rising, and quotes a minister blaming market forces for a $3 billion overrun. Descriptive; no share of overrun is assigned to input prices.
• Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts: $32.8 billion of known cost pressures across the federal land transport program, with escalation handled ad hoc. The summary does not split by cause, and it is the owner's budget pressure.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Road and bridge construction output price index up 6.0% over the year to September 2026 (146.6 to 155.4; our arithmetic). A price clients are charged, a rate with no unit in the schema, not a cost to a fixed-price contractor.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): BITRE's alert on the ABS road and bridge output price index: up 1.7% over the year to September 2019 against a ten-year average of 2.4% a year. A rate, and an output price.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Materials are 40.77% of road construction cost (Table B2, filed as context): how much is exposed, not how much prices rose against what was priced.

overrun/input_prices_none_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no Australia-wide source read states labour hours above need, or lost productivity, as a cost or as a share of project or contract cost on a basis that can be defended.

Sample. Search terms: construction labour productivity Australia; overstaffing; hours over budget; labour cost share of cost overrun; productivity gap cost per project; Productivity Commission construction productivity; Infrastructure Australia productivity; ABS multifactor productivity construction. Nine sources opened. Rates exist but are not costs, so the schema has no unit for them: construction multifactor productivity (-0.8 growth in IA 2024; a 2022-23 fall then +2.0% in 2023-24 in IA 2025); gross value added per hour worked in housing construction (not all construction) down 12% since about 1995 against up 49% for the economy (Productivity Commission); output per construction worker down 25.4% since 2013 (RLB). Dollar totals exist only for the whole economy ($56 billion and $62 billion a year of capacity or work, two consultancies' models).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: no defensible Australia-wide figure for the cost of more hours than the work needed was found, not that none exists. The Roads Australia 30% was left out because nothing shows what it measures; it is an unsourced member claim.

Where it came from

• Infrastructure Australia (2025), 2025 Infrastructure Market Capacity Report
  p.57 (summary: construction multifactor productivity rose 2.0% in 2023-24); p.61 (no consistent project-level data on subcontracting and self-performance) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Infrastructure Australia: Reports construction multifactor productivity growth of -0.8 (p.60) and that labour is about two-thirds of land transport construction cost (p.7, no source for it). A productivity growth rate and a cost share: no cost of hours above need.
• Australian Constructors Association: ABS multifactor productivity indexes for construction against other industries, and an Oxford Economics estimate that reaching the economy-wide average would unlock $56 billion of construction capacity a year. An economy-wide counterfactual of capacity, not a cost on any contract.
• Oxford Economics Australia: Estimates stagnant productivity costs Australia $62 billion a year in lost work across all construction. A modelled opportunity cost for the economy; the full report was not read and no share of a project's cost is stated.
• Rider Levett Bucknall Oceania: RLB's own series: since 2013 workers up 26.5%, hours per worker down 2.0%, output per worker down 25.4%; the Productivity Commission's 1.8% fall in construction labour productivity in 2022-23. Productivity rates for all construction, not money.
• Productivity Commission: Dwelling construction completes about half as many homes per hour as in the mid-1990s, and quality-adjusted gross value added per hour is 12% lower. Housing, and a rate, not a cost on civil work.
• Roads Australia: Members say delays and a poor working environment add 30% to total project costs. A lobby group's statement with no sample, method or definition; it mixes delay and site conditions with labour productivity, so it is not filed.
• Australian Constructors Association and Arcadis: Survey of the largest contractors: rising labour costs and stagnant productivity cited as raising costs; skilled trades up about 5% on average. Perceptions of rates of change; no cost of hours above need, no sample size.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Labour costs are 21.35% of total expenses for heavy and civil engineering (filed as context). The size of the labour cost base, not hours above what the work needed.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Labour is 31.79% of road construction cost (Table B2, filed as context). A cost composition; nothing on productivity.

overrun/labour_productivity_none_au · AU · F, F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 1.2% of the annual value of engineering construction work done by the private sector in 2025: the extra diesel cost to civil contractors of a 145 cents a litre rise in terminal gate price (national average, end of March 2026 against 27 February), if sustained for 12 months ($1.53 billion).

Sample. A scenario from a report commissioned by the Civil Contractors Federation, written in April 2026. Diesel use is the 88 million litres a month used by the federation's 1,150 member firms (Chart 10, from a CCF member survey); the price rise is the national average terminal gate price rise of 145.2 cents a litre (88.9%) between the start of the Middle East conflict at the end of February and the end of March 2026; the denominator is the report's own figure for private-sector engineering construction work done in 2025 (ABS), which the report does not state in dollars. The arithmetic matches (88 million x $1.45 = $128 million a month; x 12 = $1.53 billion), but the report's own key numbers also give 1.15 billion litres a year, which is more than 88 million x 12 (1.06 billion); the 1.2% was not recalculated. The CCF Tasmania release (considered below) says members nationally use around one billion litres a year, which fits 88 million x 12; at 1.15 billion litres the cost would be about $1.67 billion, 1.3%. The report does not state the denominator in dollars: $1.53 billion at 1.2% implies about $127.5 billion, which fits ABS engineering construction work done by private-sector contractors (public and private clients, all engineering types) rather than by civil contractors alone or for private clients alone. For scale, by 3 April the wholesale diesel price was still 127.3 cents a litre (78.0%) above pre-war, before the 30 March excise cut had fully passed through; the report notes much civil diesel is off-road and does not get the excise cut. It also reports the CCF's margin estimates (about 5% on $1 million projects, 3 to 5% up to $1 billion, 1% above $1 billion) and that the CCF estimates 80 to 95% of civil contracts by number are fixed price.

What it is not. An advocate's scenario, not a measured overrun and not an observed cost: the price rise is observed, the litres come from a member survey, and the year of sustained prices is an assumption. The report was commissioned by the Civil Contractors Federation, whose own cost calculator (considered above) puts direct fuel at about 5% of a civil project's cost, which at an 88.9% price rise would be about 4.4% of that project, so 1.2% of all private engineering work is not what a civil contractor should expect on its own work. The numerator is the extra cost of diesel to the federation's member firms only, over the whole industry's private work, and it assumes the price rise lasts a full year with nothing recovered through rise and fall, variation or a falling price; the report says some contracts do carry rise and fall but gives no share of the cost that was recovered. It is a share of a year's industry turnover, not of a contract, so it is not offered to be multiplied by a contract value. The cost is the contractor's when a contract is fixed price, but the report does not say how much of it was. It covers diesel, not other plant costs such as standby or hours above plan, and not indirect fuel in bitumen or materials.

Where it came from

• Corinna Economic Advisory (Saul Eslake), prepared for the Civil Contractors Federation (2026), The Impact of the Middle East Fuel Crisis on Australia's Civil Construction Sector
  p.9 (text after Chart 10: 'This annual figure represents 1.2%...'); p.8 ($128 million a month from 88 million litres and 145 cents); p.3 (145.2 c/L, 88.9%) · source record

Considered and set aside

• ABC News (Clare Armstrong): The CCF chief executive tells the reporter that diesel is about 7.75% of any tender and an extra $46 million on a billion-dollar project (4.6%). The article does not show how $46 million was worked out or which price rise it assumes, and it is a lobbyist's statement to the press, so it is not filed. It is a share of a tender (4.6%), not of all engineering work, so it does not sit beside the Eslake 1.2%: the two differ by about four times because the denominators and the diesel counted differ.
• Civil Contractors Federation: Gives 7.75% of contract value as the default 'fuel-impacted' proportion (5% direct fuel, 2.75% indirect) to be multiplied by the change in terminal gate price. That is a guideline cost share the user adjusts, not a measured overrun, and by the review ruling a composition share is not evidence of the cause.
• Civil Contractors Federation Tasmania: Tasmanian chapter's release: fuel up to 30% of project input costs and bitumen sealing cost up 30%. No method or sample, and Tasmania only.
• Australian Taxation Office: The off-road diesel credit fell from 52.6 to 20.6 cents a litre on 1 April 2026 after the excise cut. It is a tax rate that changes what a contractor nets, not an amount priced or an overrun.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Fuel is 5.76% of road construction cost (Table B2) and equipment 27.44%: a cost composition, filed as context, not a measure of fuel above what was priced.

overrun/plant_fuel_diesel_shock_share_of_engineering_work_au · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no Australia-wide source read measures the final measured quantity against the schedule quantity.

Sample. Search terms: quantity variation; quantity growth; bill of quantities variance; schedule of rates final account; remeasurable contract; earthworks quantity variance; unit rate contract quantity overrun; Auditor-General road construction contract variations; Austroads estimated against actual quantities. Eight national or state sources were opened and none reports measured against schedule quantity. Related shares that are not this cause: Grattan found scope changes explain about 11% of the cost overrun on 51 Australian transport projects over $100 million (additions to what is built, owner-side, between announcement and completion); Love and colleagues found change orders at 11% of work value for one contractor. A Queensland Transport and Main Roads variation study (USQ, Purvis 2015) was found but could not be opened (connection refused again at review, 2026-11-02). It covers Queensland Transport and Main Roads only, so it could not fill the national cell. A further search at review for an Austroads, Auditor-General or road agency quantity outturn study found none: Baccarini's contingency study of 48 road projects and a NSW road authority estimating study compare cost against estimate, not measured against schedule quantity.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: no defensible Australia-wide figure for how far measured quantities exceed the schedule on re-measurable contracts was found, not that none exists. The 11% figures above are shares of a different thing and are not offered as proxies.

Where it came from

• Terrill & Danks (Grattan Institute) (2016), Cost overruns in transport infrastructure
  Section 1.3.1, Figure 1.5 (p.13) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu: 67 projects from one contractor; change orders were 11% of work value. A change order is an instructed variation of scope, design or error, not a difference between the schedule quantity and the quantity measured, and the paper does not separate re-measure.
• Ryan & Duffield: 28 megaprojects reported by final profit against tendered profit. No quantity measure, and the paper does not split the loss by cause.
• WT Partnership, for the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (NSW): Compares two estimates of quantities (consultant against council) for one NSW plan before construction; earthworks differed and the council's estimate was 6% high. It is a pre-construction check, one plan, one state, and the error ran the other way.
• Victorian Auditor-General's Office: Victoria only, four projects, budget overspend of 0% to 9% attributed to land prices and geotechnical conditions. No quantity data.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): National road-works cost shares and price indexes. They say what money goes on labour, materials and equipment, with no measure of quantities built against quantities priced.
• Infrastructure Australia: National pipeline and capacity analysis. Reports input price sentiment and productivity, with no project quantity outturn.
• Infrastructure Australia: Says there is no consistent project-level data on subcontracting and self-performance, and proposes a workstream to collect core measures such as budgeted against actual cost (p.61). It holds no quantity outturn, and does not itself say budget-against-actual data is absent.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Industry income, expense and labour totals in dollars. No physical quantities and no job-level outturn.

overrun/quantity_growth_none_au · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 28.3% of the original $6.8 billion transport allocation announced in 2020: the additional $1.926 billion Cabinet approved on 31 May 2021 to fund agreed projects at their re-baselined cost estimates, plus contingency, after some projects were rescoped.

Sample. The Auditor-General's audit of the 2020 New Zealand Upgrade Programme. 21 of the 26 announced transport projects could not be delivered within the funding allocated (5.32), a frequency, not a cost. The $1.926 billion also funded rescoped projects and a contingency fund (5.12, 5.33). The report notes that confidence in the baseline information was much lower than expected (5.30).

What it is not. An estimate against a later estimate, not against outturn, and the owner's money, not a contractor's loss. No contractor's tender price is involved: both figures are the Crown's, the first set at announcement. The addition includes a contingency fund, which makes the ratio larger than the shortfall in the original estimates, and it is net of the projects that were rescoped, which makes it smaller than the cost of delivering the original scope; the report gives the size of neither, so the direction of the net error is unknown. One programme, announced before business cases were complete, so it is not a typical New Zealand tender.

Our arithmetic. $1.926 billion (paragraph 5.33) divided by $6.8 billion (paragraph 5.32) = 0.2832, rounded to 0.283. The report's own rounded figure for the addition is $1.9 billion (5.12).

Where it came from

• Office of the Auditor-General New Zealand (2023), Making infrastructure investment decisions quickly · free copy
  Part 5, paragraphs 5.12 (p.51) and 5.29 to 5.35 (p.53) · source record

Considered and set aside

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: One project, and the executive summary gives no original-versus-final cost ratio. It finds the Affordability Threshold was set too low, which is the qualitative point, not a figure for how short the estimate was.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: National Infrastructure Pipeline Figure 33 gives only how often reported cost went up after financial decision (51% of projects over $100 million, 28% of the rest), not by how much, so it is a frequency and not a cost.
• Atapattu, Domingo & Sutrisna: Estimators' ranking of causes of overrun, with inadequate tender documentation among the top three; no share of cost, and read from the abstract only.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: States that analysis of cost overruns is out of its scope; it compares unit costs between countries.

overrun/tender_pricing_nzup_rebaseline_nz · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - New Zealand national sources give how fast construction input prices moved, as index rates, but none gives what price escalation cost as a share of a fixed-price contract or of an overrun, or how much of it the contractor bore.

Sample. Searches: "Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency cost escalation infrastructure construction price increases cost of delivering roads report"; "New Zealand infrastructure cost escalation fixed price contracts contractors bear price risk bitumen steel diesel Te Waihanga"; "NZTA price adjustment fluctuations formula bitumen contracts cost fluctuation NZS 3910"; "Stats NZ Capital goods price index civil construction annual percentage increase road and bridge construction"; "Auditor-General New Zealand Upgrade Programme cost escalation construction costs share of increase contractors price risk"; "Te Waihanga infrastructure cost escalation share of project cost increase attributed to price escalation"; "Civil Contractors New Zealand survey members cost increases fuel bitumen contract price adjustment clauses". Index rates held here rather than as figures: Te Waihanga puts heavy and civil output price growth at 2.4% a year from 2009 to 2019 and 7.8% a year from 2020 to the March 2023 quarter; NZTA's construction index (excluding bitumen) rose 13.7% in the year to June 2022. Not opened: the NZ Transport Agency's website, the Ministry of Transport's website (the Cabinet paper on the Upgrade Programme's cost increase) and Statistics New Zealand's release pages (rendered by script) could not be read by automated request, and the Auditor-General's Upgrade Programme page returned 403; none was worked around. A frequency exists in words only: the law firm's observation that most contracts since COVID-19 do not allow escalation, with no count.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. A rise in an input price index, however large, is not the cost of that rise on a fixed-price contract: that needs the share of work exposed, the escalation clause, and who paid. No New Zealand source read measures that. The three nearest reads (a quantity surveyor's three-contract repricing, the Agency's modelled projection, and index rates) are respectively regional, modelled and not a cost, and are not filed as a figure.

Where it came from

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga (2023), Why do construction input costs change? The role of global and local factors · free copy
  Table 2 (Key inputs into heavy and civil construction), PDF p.11, and the text above it on p.10 (section 1.4); Table 1 on p.10; Figure 1 on p.12 · source record

Considered and set aside

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Says material prices follow world commodity prices (a 1% rise lifts the New Zealand price of steel, diesel and timber by about 0.6%, and quarterly moves above 2% occurred in almost half of the 53 quarters from 2010 to 2022). Price behaviour, with no share of any contract exposed and nobody's loss.
• NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi: The Transport Agency's published cost indexes and bitumen series, from Statistics New Zealand inputs: the construction index (excluding bitumen) rose 13.7% in the year to June 2022, and the bitumen series stood at $1.1197 a litre in December 2022, $0.4635 a litre (about 71%) above a year earlier. Index movements for contracts that use the adjustment, with no count of contracts that do and no money paid.
• Infometrics (Brad Olsen): Reads Statistics New Zealand indexes: Capital Goods Price Index up 12.5% in the year to June 2022, transport ways up 19.1% in the year to the end of 2022, civil infrastructure about 26% above the consultancy's own trend. Economy-wide price levels quoted second-hand from the statistics, not the cost of escalation on a contract and not who paid it.
• RNZ (Phil Pennington), republished by Scoop: A news report of Transport Agency briefings that contractors on young projects carry fuel index changes for the first 12 months, and of an Agency model of a 5% to 10% rise in big project costs with oil at US$100 to US$150. A press account of documents not opened, with a modelled owner-side projection.
• Wynn Williams (law firm): States that since COVID-19 most New Zealand contracts do not allow for cost escalation, and that on a fixed price without fluctuations the contractor carries price movement. This is the mechanism, in words, with no count of contracts and no amount.
• Society of Construction Contract Practitioners: Guidance for reading fluctuation clauses under NZS 3910 contracts and for agreeing baseline indices; it holds no figure.
• Bond Construction Management Ltd for Wellington Water Ltd: A quantity surveyor's repricing of three Wellington three-waters contracts found an overall 5-6% rise since September 2021, with bitumen products 8-10% and steel 4-15% up over the quarter. The closest read to a share of a contract, but three specimen contracts in one region over three months, one consultant's estimate, and it says nothing of who bore it.
• GHD for Tauranga City Council: A forecast of roading cost indices for one council, with weights (labour 40%, plant 25%, bitumen 21%, materials 14%). Forecasts and index weights, not realised escalation on a contract.
• Massey University (School of Built Environment), Atapattu: The full thesis was read. Its survey of 92 estimators ranks "price fluctuation" with a significance index of 46% (49th of 53 causes of overrun, Table 3.2, printed p.70), noting that most projects allow price fluctuation claims; its literature review cites a 20 to 25% share of overruns from price fluctuations in a study (Adam et al. 2017) that is not a New Zealand sample and was not opened. A perception ranking and a second-hand figure from another country.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Industry-wide output, price and productivity statistics; no project-level or contract-level price exposure.
• Office of the Auditor-General New Zealand: Searched for escalation, inflation, bitumen, steel and diesel and uses none of those words; its re-baselining of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme gives no split of the increase between scope and price.

overrun/input_prices_none_nz · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - New Zealand national sources give industry productivity indices and cost shares, not hours or labour cost against budget on civil jobs.

Sample. Searches: "Stats NZ productivity statistics industry heavy and civil engineering construction labour productivity hours worked"; "Jaffe Le Chappell Motu construction productivity heavy and civil"; "Te Waihanga cost of infrastructure construction cost drivers productivity"; "Labour Productivity in the New Zealand Construction Industry: A Thorough Investigation" (publisher page refused access, so not opened); "New Zealand infrastructure projects cost overruns study". Frequencies and indices that exist but are not costs: civil labour productivity growth of 5% (2022 edition) or 7% (2026 edition) over 2000 to 2020; annual paid hours per worker in construction down about 6% over 2000 to 2020; a Te Waihanga model estimating civil construction prices would be about 10% lower had productivity matched building (a modelled counterfactual on prices, not a share of contract).

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. Productivity statistics and a labour cost share are not a measure of hours beyond what the work needed, and presenting 22% of cost or a 5% to 7% index as a contractor's overstaffing exposure would be a misreading. No New Zealand source read reports hours or labour cost against budget on civil work.

Where it came from

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga (2022), Economic performance of New Zealand's construction industry · free copy
  Labour productivity sections, Figures 10 to 12 (pp.16-19); firm profit margins (Figures 16 and 17); Appendix 2 on measuring labour input · source record

Considered and set aside

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Gives civil labour productivity growth of 7% from 2000 to 2020 (building construction 21%), an index of output per hour for the industry, not hours over need on a job. Its earlier edition's 5% differs.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Puts direct labour at around 22% of heavy and civil industry costs (the printed table's labour cell is blank). That is the cost base exposed to hours, not an overstaffing or overrun figure.
• Motu Economic and Public Policy Research (for BRANZ): Firm-level productivity growth and dispersion for 2001 to 2012; compares firms with each other, not hours with a budget.
• NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER): Sector-wide productivity and competition evidence from 2013; no job-level hours or budgets.
• Atapattu, Domingo & Sutrisna: Estimators' ranking of overrun causes; the abstract names design changes, planning and tender documentation and gives no labour-hours share. Abstract only was read.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: One road. It records construction progress rates falling short of the joint venture's plan, with no hours or labour cost figure.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Productivity levels are estimated for vertical (building) construction only, and its labour-share breakdown is Australian data.
• Office of the Auditor-General New Zealand: Audit of one programme's decision-making; it does not break increases into labour, plant or materials.
• New Zealand Government Procurement (MBIE): Contract-form guidance; it contains no labour or productivity figure.

overrun/labour_productivity_none_nz · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no New Zealand national source read gives plant utilisation or standby cost, fuel used against fuel priced, or the cost of fuel and plant overruns as a share of a contract or of an overrun.

Sample. Searches: "New Zealand civil contractors fuel plant utilisation standby cost study roading contractors diesel share contract price"; "Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency cost escalation infrastructure construction price increases"; "NZTA price adjustment fluctuations formula bitumen contracts NZS 3910"; "Civil Contractors New Zealand survey members cost increases fuel bitumen contract price adjustment"; "New Zealand infrastructure cost escalation fixed price contracts contractors bear price risk bitumen steel diesel". Not opened: the NZ Transport Agency's own website, the Ministry of Transport website and the EECA off-road equipment decarbonisation report all returned a bot-protection page to automated requests, and the Auditor-General's New Zealand Upgrade Programme page returned 403; none was worked around. Index rates, not costs: NZTA's construction index (excluding bitumen) rose 13.7% in the year to June 2022 and its bitumen series was $1.1197 a litre in December 2022, $0.4635 a litre (about 71%) above a year earlier. A model, not an outturn, and not filed: RNZ reports the Agency's early modelling at a five percent rise in big project costs at US$100 a barrel and ten percent at US$150, with no time horizon given; Te Waihanga's 2026 review repeats it, citing only that RNZ article, as annual cost inflation for projects with active fluctuation clauses. The briefings themselves are not published where they could be found. It is a modelled owner-side projection of total project cost from diesel and bitumen together, not plant hours or fuel above what was priced.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. Sources give how large plant and fuel are in a cost structure, how fast diesel and bitumen prices moved and who carries the risk under the contract, but none measures plant hours or fuel above what was priced, or the cost of that as a share of a contract or an overrun. Cost-composition shares are context, not evidence of this cause. This register holds no ratio rather than a borrowed one.

Where it came from

• NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (2026), Infrastructure and public transport contract price adjustment (NZTA cost indexes and bitumen series) · free copy
  latest-values-NEW-infrastructure-indexes.xlsx, sheet 'Construction ... excluding' (weights and escalation rates); latest-values-bitumen-price-adjustment-series.xlsx, sheet 'Cost adjustment series' · source record

Considered and set aside

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Statistics New Zealand's 2020 input-output tables as tabulated by Te Waihanga: diesel is 1.7% and equipment 10.1% of the heavy and civil industry's inputs. That is how big plant and fuel are in the cost structure, now filed as context, and the paper does not compare fuel or plant hours used with those priced.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Estimates that a 1% rise in world commodity prices lifts New Zealand diesel prices by about 0.6% (p.17); a price pass-through, with no fuel use against estimate and no plant utilisation.
• NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi: The Transport Agency's price-adjustment index for construction other than structures weights plant and site overheads 0.35 and the bitumen series is set monthly. They record how fast prices moved for contracts that use them, not hours above what was priced, and they do not say how many contracts carry the adjustment.
• RNZ (Phil Pennington), republished by Scoop: A news report of Transport Agency briefings: diesel is seven percent of the road construction index, and on projects under a year old contractors are exposed to fuel index changes in that first 12 months. A press account of documents not opened, and a share of an index, not a measured overrun in fuel or plant.
• Society of Construction Contract Practitioners: Practitioners' guidance on recovering fuel cost rises under NZS 3910 contracts. It names the mechanisms and the records to keep and contains no figure.
• Wynn Williams (law firm): Law-firm commentary that on fixed-price contracts without fluctuation provisions the contractor generally carries a fuel price rise, and that most contracts since COVID-19 do not allow for escalation. It states who bears the risk, with no number for how much fuel cost exceeded what was priced.
• Bond Construction Management Ltd for Wellington Water Ltd: A quantity surveyor's quarter-on-quarter repricing for three Wellington pipe-renewal contracts: diesel about 13%, plant hire 3-5% and operated plant 5-7% up in the fourth quarter of 2021. Price movements for one region and one quarter, estimated by one consultant, and no hours or litres against allowance.
• GHD for Tauranga City Council: A consultancy's forecast for one council: plant other than structures is 25% of its roading output index. An index weight and a forecast, not plant use above what was priced.
• Massey University (School of Built Environment), Atapattu: The full thesis was read. Its survey of 92 estimators ranks "unavailability or failure of equipment" with a significance index of 49% (44th of 53 causes of overrun, Table 3.2, printed p.70). A perception ranking, with no share of cost, and plant hours and fuel are not separate items in it.
• Office of the Auditor-General New Zealand: The Auditor-General's report on the New Zealand Upgrade Programme's decisions was searched for fuel, diesel, bitumen, steel, escalation and inflation and uses none of those words; it gives no plant or fuel cost.

overrun/plant_fuel_none_nz · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no New Zealand national source read gives final quantities, or final account value, against the schedule of quantities tendered.

Sample. Searches: "Te Waihanga cost overruns infrastructure"; "NZ Transport Agency research report cost estimate accuracy roading outturn"; "New Zealand infrastructure projects cost overruns study Treasury major projects"; "New Zealand roading contracts quantity variations schedule of quantities remeasure final account"; "New Zealand civil construction contract variations final account over tender Waka Kotahi post implementation review"; "Office of the Auditor-General Waka Kotahi procurement contract management variations". Not opened: the NZ Transport Agency website refused automated access (its 1993 Transit New Zealand research report 23 on the reliability of capital cost estimates, the SM031 basis of payment template and the 2025 contract variation guidance draft could not be read); the publisher's site refused automated access to the full text of Atapattu et al. 2023. A frequency exists: the Pipeline shares above, and the Auditor-General's 21 of 26 projects, but neither is a cost and neither is about quantities.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. New Zealand government guidance confirms the mechanism, that on re-measurement contracts the initial sum is adjusted as actual quantities are measured, but no source read publishes how far quantities moved. This register holds no ratio rather than a borrowed one. The Australian findings in the corpus do not apply to a New Zealand job.

Where it came from

• New Zealand Government Procurement (MBIE) (2019), Measurement Contract: Construction Procurement Guidelines (information sheet)
  Overview, p.1 (the one page of the information sheet) · source record

Considered and set aside

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: The National Infrastructure Pipeline shares (Figure 33) say how often reported cost rose after financial decision, 51% of projects over $100 million and 28% of the rest, not by how much, and not because of quantities.
• Office of the Auditor-General New Zealand: Audit of one programme's decisions; it reports that 21 of 26 transport projects could not be delivered within allocated funding, a frequency, and gives no split of the increase between scope, quantity and price.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: One public-private partnership road. Its settlements ($400.3 million in total, $186.5 million for the consenting claim, about $50 million for a change to asphalt over one-third of the road) are variations and claims on one job, not quantity growth on a schedule.
• Atapattu, Domingo & Sutrisna: Survey of 92 estimators ranking causes of overrun; the abstract names design changes, planning and tender documentation as leading, and gives no share of cost for quantity growth. Abstract only was read.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: States that cost overrun analysis is out of its scope; its cost breakdown by input is Australian data.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: About input prices and wages, and the industry's cost structure; it says nothing about quantities built against quantities scheduled.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Industry-wide output, price and productivity statistics; no project-level quantities or final accounts.
• Motu Economic and Public Policy Research (for BRANZ): Firm productivity decomposition from Statistics New Zealand microdata; no project-level quantities.
• NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER): Sector-wide productivity and competition evidence; no project-level quantities or final accounts.

overrun/quantity_growth_none_nz · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 20% of budget, decision to build versus actual cost, real terms.

Sample. Roads average 20% (N=167, sd=30); all project types average 28% (N=258, sd=39). Rail, bridge, tunnel and road projects across five continents.

What it is not. Measured from the decision to build, so most of it arises BEFORE a contractor is signed, and much of it is paid by the client. This is NOT a figure for what a contractor loses, which is why it is recorded as owner_side and excluded from the headline.

Where it came from

• Flyvbjerg, Holm & Buhl (2004), What Causes Cost Overrun in Transport Infrastructure Projects?
  p.5 · source record

overrun/overrun_roads_worldwide · GLOBAL · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 40.5% of the total additional cost caused by overruns, as apportioned across the parties by 52 surveyed experts.

Sample. 52 Belgian public infrastructure stakeholders, 35% of them general contractors. Public tendering authorities were assigned 49% and contractors 40.5%.

What it is not. An opinion of who pays, not a measured cost: respondents apportioned 100% of the extra cost by judgement. Contractors assigned themselves 50.7%, others assigned them 35.6%. Belgium only, and a share of the overrun, not of the contract, so it is never multiplied by a contract value.

Where it came from

• Molinari, Haezendonck, Van Rompay, Mabillard & Dooms (2025), Persisting Cost Overruns in Public Infrastructure Projects: Lessons From the Belgian Case · free copy
  Section 3.2.3.4 'Distributing the impact occurred due to cost overruns', p.18 of the accepted manuscript; survey question, Section 2.2, p.7 · source record

overrun/overrun_contractor_share_belgium · BE · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 10.6% of original contract value, client-approved change orders.

Sample. 67 completed public infrastructure projects from one contractor, Australia, civil, 2011-2014. Change orders totalled about AU$342m against about AU$3.2bn of original contract value, so 10.6% is a total over a total (the paper calls it a mean: average change orders of about AU$5.1m over average contract value of about AU$48.2m).

What it is not. SIZE OF THE POT, NOT A LOSS. No study measures how much of it a typical contractor fails to claim. Change orders were linked to HIGHER contractor margins, which is the opposite of a loss.

Where it came from

• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu (2017), Cost Performance of Public Infrastructure Projects: The Nemesis and Nirvana of Change-Orders · free copy
  Table 2; accepted manuscript, Change-Orders section · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'variations' is now the registers' cause 'unclaimed_variations' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

forfeited_entitlements/entitlement_variations_pot · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 36.9% of the total amount claimed across 246 adjudication decisions: claims the adjudicator could not decide at all.

Sample. 246 published Queensland adjudication decisions, March 2022 to August 2023; 66 (26.8%) were no-jurisdiction decisions.

What it is not. A nominating authority's own count of published decisions, not the regulator's statistics. A no-jurisdiction decision means the claim failed on procedure, such as timing or form, not on its merits, and the claimant may have other routes to recover, so this is money put at risk by procedure rather than a proven loss.

Our arithmetic. $70,119,333.18 claimed in no-jurisdiction decisions / $189,905,327.50 claimed across all 246 decisions = 0.3692 (the author calls it 'almost 37%').

Where it came from

• Adjudicate Today (2023), What is happening under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 QLD?
  article body, the author's tally of 246 Queensland decisions · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'payment' is now the registers' cause 'unpaid_claims' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

forfeited_entitlements/entitlement_lost_no_jurisdiction_qld · AU-QLD · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 9% of the cost of the projects examined: over A$127 million in contract variations.

Sample. The Queensland Government infrastructure projects (mostly schools and public buildings) examined in QAO Report 16: 2021-22. One project, Fortitude Valley State Secondary College, reached 21.5% of its original contract value.

What it is not. A handful of audited building projects, not a sample of Queensland civil work. The denominator is total project cost, not the original contract value. Variations are money the client agreed to pay, the size of the pot, not a contractor loss. Corroborates the 10.6% change-order figure (67 Australian projects) from a Queensland regulator.

Where it came from

• Queensland Audit Office (2022), Contract management for new infrastructure (Report 16: 2021-22) · free copy
  'Audit conclusions'; definition of contract variation under 'Are contract variations effectively managed?' · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'variations' is now the registers' cause 'unclaimed_variations' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

forfeited_entitlements/entitlement_variations_qld_public · AU-QLD · F41 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. AUD per claim: the average dollar amount of the claimant's most recent claim under security of payment law, as reported by contractors who had made one.

Sample. Survey of 526 construction contractors in all states and territories (46.8% Queensland, 30.8% Western Australia, 17.9% New South Wales), commissioned for the 2017 review. Only 23% had ever made a security of payment claim, and the report does not state how many answered the claim-amount question. 25% of claimants in the last two years said their claim was between $100 001 and $500 000; 60% said the claim was against a head contractor.

What it is not. A claim amount is money claimed because it was unpaid or disputed, not money lost: some is later paid or adjudicated in part. A mean of self-reported amounts from a convenience survey, not a count of claims: 73% of respondents were in firms of 20 or fewer people, 45% were electrical contractors, and civil contractors are a minority, and 96% of respondents came from Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales, so the other states and territories are barely represented. Never multiplied by a contract value.

Where it came from

• J Murray AM, for the Australian Government (Department of Jobs and Small Business) (2017), Review of Security of Payment Laws: Building Trust and Harmony
  Appendix B, 'Security of payment laws and claims made', p.324 · source record

forfeited_entitlements/payment_sop_average_claim_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. AUD per project: liquidated damages applied for late Practical Completion ($1.3 million, May to December 2010) plus late Final Acceptance ($5.2 million, December 2014 to April 2015), on a fixed-price contract valued at $263 million (about 2.5% of that contract value).

Sample. Defence's design-and-construct contract with Lend Lease for the Mulwala propellant plant (signed 8 June 2007, fixed price, $263 million). Practical Completion was due in March 2010 (33 months, paragraphs 3.2 and 3.10; Box 2 prints the Deed 1 starting date as March 2009, which the report's own text contradicts) and was moved to February 2011 by the first deed; Final Acceptance, contracted for June 2011, was granted on 30 April 2015, nearly four years late (paragraph 3.3), and the last major defect is not expected to be rectified until August 2016, more than five years after the contracted date. Defence kept $1.3 million of $1.8 million accrued in the first period and deducted $5.2 million accrued in the second from a $9.4 million payment due at Final Acceptance.

What it is not. One Commonwealth defence-industrial project (New South Wales), selected by an audit because it failed, so it is the damages that were applied on a project whose Final Acceptance came nearly four years late (and whose last major defect fell more than five years after the contracted date), not a typical rate. It is a figure for what was applied and deducted, not for time owed and never claimed: the report records that the contractor sought extensions of time among its claims (paragraph 3.10) and that the deeds moved the completion dates, so the days charged were those left after that settlement. The two amounts are GST exclusive and are not adjusted for inflation (the $1.3 million is 2010 money and the $5.2 million 2015 money, added as published; price_year is the year of the larger amount), and the 2.5% is against the original $263 million contract value, which the deeds later changed. Table 3.1 of the same report shows liquidated damages paid as $7 million against $6.5 million here; the box note is used because it states each period. Not a figure for Australia-wide practice, so it is filed under NSW and does not fill the national cell.

Our arithmetic. 1.3 + 5.2 = 6.5 ($ million, the two amounts in Box 2 Note b). 6.5 / 263 = 0.0247, about 2.5% of the $263 million contract in paragraph 3.1. The share is given only here, in words, and is not filed as a ratio_of_contract: it is one project and the product would multiply it by every NSW job.

Where it came from

• Australian National Audit Office (2016), Defence's Management of the Mulwala Propellant Facility (Auditor-General Report No. 26 of 2015-16)
  Chapter 3, paragraphs 3.1 to 3.3 and 3.10; Box 2 Note b; Table 3.1 · source record

forfeited_entitlements/penalty_days_liquidated_damages_levied_mulwala_nsw · AU-NSW · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - nine Australian sources opened, none measures prolongation, standby or extended-preliminaries money that went unclaimed after time was granted.

Sample. Search terms: extension of time claims liquidated damages Australian construction empirical; delay cost prolongation claims percentage Australia; delay costs recovery survey Australian contractors; unrecovered costs claims per cent of contract value Australia; Australian Constructors Association contract risk survey; Arcadis construction disputes Australia causes. The nearest measure is time-related site overhead: 30 Australian estimators put 45.49% of preliminaries as time-related for the whole job (Table 6), and preliminaries at 10% to 20% of the contract sum (UK 2002, second-hand); the corpus holds the resulting per-day worked example in this cause as weather_wet_day_overhead, and the share-of-contract arithmetic as a `none` record, weather_unclaimed_days_share_of_contract (both moved here from penalty_days on review): calculations, not measurements of money left unclaimed. Not counted because it would not open: HKA Crux 2025 (global, page without figures), Austlii judgments (403).

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. The time-related overhead share says what a delay day costs in principle, not how many such days go unclaimed once time is granted, which no source we could open measures.

Where it came from

• O'Leary & Vaz-Serra (2025), Challenges in pricing preliminaries costs for contractors: An Australian case study
  introduction citing Chan & Pasquire 2002; table 6 (30 Australian estimators) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Transport for NSW: Clause 43 pays wet-weather delay costs only above a nominated threshold of days, and the guide note sets the rate at 50% of the site-overhead rate: a contract rule from one agency, not a measure of what contractors fail to claim.
• Infrastructure Australia: Says contractor claims are growing and cites delay-driven disputes, with no count or dollar figure for delay costs claimed or missed.
• Hasib & Al-Kilidar (University of Technology Sydney): Ranks causes of delay by perceived importance (28 respondents); measures no cost and no claim outcome.
• Arcadis with the Australian Constructors Association: Costs absorbed after contractual mitigation including extensions of time, but only for market price escalation, with no respondent count and no values printed on the chart.
• Love, Zhou, Edwards, Irani & Sing: 16 rail projects; reports cost increases by scope change and mentions delays only as background, with no delay-cost measure.
• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu: 67 projects' change orders in total; no extension-of-time or prolongation category.
• Terrill, Coates & Danks (Grattan Institute): 836 transport projects' overruns from announcement, owner-side and not split by cause.
• Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts: $32.8bn of known cost pressures and delivery delays across the federal pipeline, not split by cause; government money.
• Queensland Parliament, Minister for Transport and Main Roads: Net variations in contract scope, cost or time across Queensland road contracts, with no separation of delay costs; Queensland only.

forfeited_entitlements/delay_costs_none_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - eight Australian sources opened, none measures latent-condition claims or their cost as a share of contract value, a cost per claim, or the share rejected for lack of notice.

Sample. Search terms: latent conditions claims Australia cost share of contract value; differing site conditions variations percentage; ground risk cost infrastructure Australia; latent conditions time bar notice empirical study; ANAO contract variations latent conditions; Austroads variations by cause; Australian Constructors Association risk allocation survey; underground utility strikes cost Australia. Frequencies found, none a cost: in the Infrastructure Australia market sounding survey 44% of government and 38% of private executives said latent ground risk should be shared and 8% of government executives said the private sector should bear it (Section 4.9, p.47). Sources that could not be opened and so are not counted: a Queensland TMR road-variations thesis (Purvis 2015, host unreachable), the Before You Dig Australia 2024 utility-strike assessment (403), Austlii judgments (403).

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. No source we could open reports how often latent-condition claims are made, how many fail for lack of notice, or what ground risk costs as a share of contract value. The Sydney CBD Light Rail overrun (about $1bn, about 50% of project value, Infrastructure Australia Section 4.7) is one contested NSW project driven mainly by utilities and is owner-side, so it is not filed as a figure.

Where it came from

• Infrastructure Australia (2021), A National Study of Infrastructure Risk
  Section 4.2 and Figures 5 and 6 (who should bear latent geotechnical risk); Section 4.7 (utilities and relocation risk); Section 4.9 'Unpredictable ground conditions', p.47 and Figure 28 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Love, Zhou, Edwards, Irani & Sing: 16 Australian rail projects by one contractor; scope changes drove the cost increase and the text names underground-utility relocation as a cause, but gives no latent-condition cost or share.
• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu: 67 public infrastructure projects; change orders of 10.6% of contract value are reported in total. The paper says analysing the nature of change orders is outside its remit and observes only that scope changes and documentation errors predominated, so there is no latent-condition category.
• Terrill, Coates & Danks (Grattan Institute): 836-project national overrun dataset measured from the first announced cost; owner-side money and no split by cause, so ground conditions cannot be isolated.
• Queensland Parliament, Minister for Transport and Main Roads: Names latent conditions among reasons for variations on Queensland road contracts and gives net variations in total ($753.7m on $8.87bn awarded); no split by reason, and Queensland only.
• Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts: $32.8bn of known cost pressures across the federal pipeline, not split by cause and not independently verified by the review; government money.
• Arcadis with the Australian Constructors Association: Contractors' absorbed market price escalation after variations and extensions of time; a perception survey on prices, not ground conditions, with no respondent count.
• Hasib & Al-Kilidar (University of Technology Sydney): 28 respondents ranking 59 delay causes; ground conditions were not among the causes surveyed and no cost is measured.
• Transport for NSW: Transport for NSW's general requirements for major civil contracts; a search of its full text found no latent-condition clause or rate, and it holds contract terms, not outcomes.

forfeited_entitlements/latent_conditions_none_au · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. AUD per insolvent construction company: the lowest-band estimate of liabilities over assets for all its creditors (unsecured trade creditors and subcontractors among them), averaged over the 2,153 insolvencies.

Sample. All 2,153 construction-industry initial external administrators' reports in 2013-14. The committee's own total is a floor; the CFMEU's median-based estimate is $2.70 billion, or about $1.26 million per insolvency (also a division by 2,153). 1,974 of the 2,153 (91.7%) paid unsecured creditors zero cents in the dollar (Table 3.4).

What it is not. Losses of ALL creditors, including banks, the tax office and employees, not of subcontractors alone, and of insolvent companies, not of a typical job. An estimate lodged at the start of each administration (liabilities over assets), not a realised loss or a recovery outcome. A lower-bound mean from band minimums, so it understates the 67 insolvencies above $10 million, which Table 3.1 counts at their $10 million floor; and the mean is pulled up by those large cases (981 of the 2,153 reports, 45.6%, show a deficiency under $250,000), so it is not a typical company's shortfall. 2013-14 data; ASIC publishes later years that this research pass did not open. Not a share of contract value, so never multiplied by one.

Our arithmetic. Table 3.1 total estimated deficiency (minimum) $1,625 million, built by taking the lowest dollar figure in each of seven deficiency bands, divided by the 2,153 reports: 1,625,000,000 / 2,153 = 754,761, shown as 755,000 because the table is rounded to $ million.

Where it came from

• Senate Economics References Committee, Parliament of Australia (2015), Insolvency in the Australian construction industry ("I just want to be paid"), Chapter 3: The impact of insolvency
  Chapter 3, Table 3.1 and paragraph 3.4 · source record

forfeited_entitlements/payment_construction_insolvency_shortfall_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - ten Australian sources opened, none measures liquidated damages as a share of contract value or per day across a national sample of projects, or the share of extension-of-time claims refused or served late.

Sample. Search terms: liquidated damages levied Australia public infrastructure percentage of contract value; Auditor-General liquidated damages not applied delayed projects (NSW, Victoria, Queensland, WA, Commonwealth); extension of time claims time-barred notice empirical study Australia; Society of Construction Law Australia empirical delay claims; Productivity Commission public infrastructure liquidated damages; Melbourne Law School survey of contract amendments; Arcadis global construction disputes Australia delay claims. Amounts found, none national: Mulwala $6.5 million on $263 million (ANAO, filed under AU-NSW); Banksia Hill $209 000 (WA, no contract value). Frequencies and contract terms found, none a cost: Suburban Rail Loop tunnels cap liquidated damages at 10 per cent of target outturn cost (15 per cent by election); the Murray review (Chapter 15.5, retentions) reports head contractors citing liquidated damages to keep subcontractors' retention, and its Chapter 16.5 and 16.6 (unfair contract terms) records stakeholder and Society of Construction Law Australia views that time bars on extension-of-time claims often go beyond their legitimate purpose, in both cases with no count or amount. Not opened and so not counted: a Melbourne Law School survey of contract amendments that a search summary of a vendor page cited (not found at source), and the Arcadis and HKA global dispute reports, whose Australian cuts we did not find.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. Liquidated damages are a contract term, and Australian audit offices report them only project by project, usually when a project failed. No source we could open reports how much is levied across a national sample, or how many extension-of-time claims are refused or time-barred. One project amount is filed under AU-NSW. Contract rates and caps (for example 10 per cent of target outturn cost) are terms, not outcomes, and are not filed.

Where it came from

• J Murray AM, for the Australian Government (Department of Jobs and Small Business) (2017), Review of Security of Payment Laws: Building Trust and Harmony
  Appendix B 'Survey of contractors', p.324 (claim amounts under security of payment laws); Chapter 3, p.14 (survey of 526 contractors); Chapter 6, p.64 (applications per year); Chapter 10, p.123 (latent conditions, time-related costs, disputed variations); Section 15.5, p.270 (retentions and bank guarantees) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Australian National Audit Office: The one place an audit states liquidated damages actually applied and the contract value: $6.5 million on a $263 million contract (Box 2 Note b, paragraph 3.1). It is one troubled Commonwealth project in New South Wales, so it is filed as a per-project amount under AU-NSW (penalty_days_liquidated_damages_levied_mulwala_nsw) and cannot stand for Australia.
• Australian National Audit Office: Finance withheld liquidated damages for missing Practical Completion, then released them and waived more in a 2007 settlement, but the report states no amount. The contractor's extension-of-time claim (234.9 days, $46.89 million; Finance counted 89 days and $19.45 million) is one project's dispute, not a rate.
• Office of the Auditor General Western Australia: $209 000 of liquidated damages applied on one Western Australian building contract, against $789 000 of transitional costs; no contract value is given, so no share can be formed, and it is one state project.
• Victorian Auditor-General's Office: Shows liquidated damages exposure released in a settlement on one Victorian rail project (settlement 10.5 per cent of the original contract price), but states no amount accrued, so the damages themselves are unmeasured.
• Victorian Auditor-General's Office: Describes the liquidated damages regime (daily rates, capped at 10 per cent of target outturn cost, 15 per cent if the contractor raises the cap) on contracts not yet performed; a contract term, not damages levied.
• Productivity Commission: National inquiry on public infrastructure delivery; liquidated damages appear only in passing (a commentator's $15 million for one day late on one plant, a 10 per cent provision in one contract), with nothing on what is levied or on extension-of-time claims.
• Transport for NSW: Transport for NSW's general requirements TS 01566: the Principal's Authorised Person has no power over the liquidated damages only clause (clause 13.1(c), which cites Clause 51 of the General Conditions of Contract), and a subcontractor's liquidated damages may not exceed the rates agreed with the Principal (Primary Testing hold point); contract terms with no rate and no outcome.
• Hasib & Al-Kilidar (University of Technology Sydney): 28 respondents ranking 59 causes of delay; the paper does not mention damages, penalties or extensions of time, and measures no cost.
• Infrastructure Australia: National market-capacity study of risk allocation between government and contractors; the full text has no reference to liquidated damages or extensions of time.
• Arcadis with the Australian Constructors Association: Contractors' absorbed price escalation after variations and extensions of time; it names extensions of time as a mitigation tool but gives no count of claims refused or damages deducted, and no respondent count.

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What it is. None - a worked calculation gives 0.35% to 0.81% of contract value for 20 unclaimed wet days, but no source measures how many wet days a real job leaves unclaimed.

Sample. The calculation, not a measurement: 10% preliminaries x 45.49% time-related / 261 week days a year x 20 days = 0.35% of contract value; 20% x 45.49% / 226 working days x 20 days = 0.81%. 45.49% is O'Leary and Vaz-Serra table 6; 10% to 20% is their introduction, citing Chan and Pasquire 2002; 261, 226 and 20 are Transport for NSW TS 01566 Table E2.1. The time-related share of preliminaries comes from 30 senior Australian estimators; the working days and the 20 wet days are the ones Transport for NSW builds into its own daywork labour rate for major civil contracts.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. A share of contract value is the one unit a product multiplies by a contract value, and this one rests on an assumed day count, so it is not held as a figure. See weather_wet_day_overhead for the same arithmetic as a cost per day. The 20 wet days a year that Transport for NSW estimates are priced into the rates, so their overhead is paid for; this is the cost of the same number of days going unclaimed beyond the allowance. How many unclaimed wet days a real job loses is not measured anywhere we found. The 10% to 20% preliminaries figure is a UK 2002 number read second-hand, and the estimators' survey was mostly building work. Use your own preliminaries rate and wet-day count if you have them.

Where it came from

• O'Leary & Vaz-Serra (2025), Challenges in pricing preliminaries costs for contractors: An Australian case study
  introduction citing Chan & Pasquire 2002; table 6 (30 Australian estimators) · source record
• Transport for NSW (2024), QA Specification TS 01566 (G2-C2): General Requirements (Major Contracts)
  Annexure G2-C2/E, Table E2.1, rows c, h and i · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'weather' is now the registers' cause 'penalty_days' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)
• 2026-11-02 subtype moved from 'penalty_days' to 'unclaimed_delay_costs' on SM070 P2 review: the figure measures time-related site overhead that keeps running on the days (extended preliminaries and site overheads), which is what the delay-costs cause covers, not liquidated damages running on time never claimed (the penalty_days cause)
• 2026-11-02 exposure_value 0.0035 (range 0.0035 to 0.0081, derivation calculated, unit ratio_of_contract) set to none before any tagged release, SM070: as a ratio of contract the worked example displaced the 10.6% variations figure on New South Wales jobs because its Transport for NSW source made it the nearest evidence, about 30 times lower on an assumed count of 20 unclaimed days. The arithmetic is kept in sample_note.

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What it is. AUD per working day at the high end (AU$870 at the low end), 20 wet days is AU$17,400 to AU$40,300.

Range A$870 to A$2,010 (scenario)

Sample. 30 senior Australian estimators put about 45.49% of preliminaries as time-related for the whole job; preliminaries are 10-20% of the contract sum. On a $5M job that is AU$870 to AU$2,010 per working day, depending on the overhead rate and the working days in the year.

What it is not. A WORKED EXAMPLE, NOT A MEASUREMENT. Both inputs are weaker than we would like: the 10-20% preliminaries figure is a UK 2002 number cited second-hand, and the estimators' survey was mostly building work. No open Australian civil source gives either number. Use your own rates if you have them. The unit is per wet day, so this figure is never multiplied by a contract value. Price year taken from the source's data year; not yet confirmed against the source's tables.

Our arithmetic. Worked on a $5M contract. High end: 5,000,000 x 20% preliminaries x 45.49% time-related = 454,900 a year, / 226 working days = 2,013, shown as 2,010. Low end: 5,000,000 x 10% x 45.49% = 227,450 a year, / 261 working days = 871, shown as 870. The 45.49% is table 6; the 10% to 20% is the introduction, citing Chan & Pasquire 2002.

Where it came from

• O'Leary & Vaz-Serra (2025), Challenges in pricing preliminaries costs for contractors: An Australian case study
  introduction citing Chan & Pasquire 2002; table 6 (30 Australian estimators) · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'weather' is now the registers' cause 'penalty_days' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)
• 2026-11-02 subtype moved from 'penalty_days' to 'unclaimed_delay_costs' on SM070 P2 review: the figure measures time-related site overhead per day (extended preliminaries and site overheads), which is what the delay-costs cause covers, not liquidated damages running on time never claimed (the penalty_days cause)

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources describe time bars on extension of time claims and name delay as a dispute cause, but none measures the money lost to unclaimed time or levied liquidated damages.

Sample. Search terms: New Zealand construction extension of time claims survey; liquidated damages New Zealand study rate per day percentage of contract; NZS 3910 time bars; construction weather delays New Zealand wet days cost; BRANZ NIWA weather delay construction; Civil Contractors NZ extreme weather survey. A frequency exists: respondents to the Treasury review report time bars of often 10 working days (Advisian 2019, Time bars section), and 20% of Russell McVeagh 2020 respondents expect delays and extensions of time to cause disputes; neither is a cost. Wet days are counted (NIWA 1991-2020, Auckland 130.1 a year) but not costed. The Civil Contractors NZ and Teletrac Navman 2023 survey (nearly 70% of businesses with projects hit by extreme weather, reported by RNZ) was seen only as press coverage and its report was not opened. The Treasury report is the source of record because it is the national New Zealand source that deals directly with time bars.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: eight sources opened, none states what unclaimed time or levied liquidated damages cost a New Zealand contractor. A claim that a time bar caused a loss is the industry's complaint recorded in a review, not a measurement. Not read: the NZS 3910:2023 contract text, court decisions on liquidated damages, and any New Zealand Transport Agency data on liquidated damages levied.

Where it came from

• Advisian for the New Zealand Treasury Infrastructure Transactions Unit (2019), An examination of issues associated with the use of NZS Conditions of Contract
  executive summary (PDF p.3); "Time bars" (section 6, PDF p.24); "Risk transfer by stealth" (PDF p.30); NZIQS survey cited at PDF p.29 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Russell McVeagh: Perception survey: 20% of respondents expect delays and extensions of time to cause disputes and employer variation is the leading cause of delay. Shares of respondents, no money, no count of claims or liquidated damages.
• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare): Lists extensions of time and liquidated damages claims among the common issues in adjudication but says it has not collected statistics on issue types; its published costs are for the dispute process, not the time claim.
• NIWA, republished by Figure.NZ: Mean annual wet days (1 mm or more) by station, 1991 to 2020, for example Auckland 130.1 and Christchurch 82.9. A count of days, not working days lost and not a cost; it does not say how many were claimed.
• Atapattu, Massey University (PhD thesis): Respondents rate unpredictable weather conditions 62% on a severity index (27th of 53 factors). A rating of importance; the 19.5% mean overrun across 106 road projects is not split by cause.
• Insurance Council of New Zealand: Insurer-reported claims from Cyclone Gabrielle (NZ$890 million, commercial NZ$352.5 million at March 2023). Insured property and business losses, not contractors' unrecovered delay costs or liquidated damages.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Benchmarks delivery cost against other countries and names delays and scope uncertainty as cost sources in general terms; no extension of time or liquidated damages data.
• Office of the Auditor-General: National audit of state highway maintenance contracts; reports on monitoring and the contract model and says nothing on extensions of time, weather days or liquidated damages.
• Mbachu and Taylor: Full text read (36 usable responses, mostly Wellington): ranks 21 contractual risks in six categories by mean significance; programme risk under required delivery timeframes ranks first overall, inclement weather 16th. Ratings, no money, and no liquidated damages or time-bar measure.

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources describe delay and extension of time disputes, but none gives a delay cost per day, a share of contract value, or the share of delay costs left unclaimed.

Sample. Search terms: New Zealand construction delay costs prolongation claims study; extension of time cost claims New Zealand survey; delay and disruption costs per day New Zealand; standby plant delay claim; preliminaries time-related New Zealand; Transmission Gully delay payments; Te Waihanga delay. A frequency exists: the Tribunal lists extensions of time and delay cost claims among the common issues in adjudication but has not collected statistics on types (printed pp.29-30 of its 2023 report). The Tribunal report is the source of record because it is the New Zealand national source that names delay cost claims as a routine adjudication issue and states it holds no figures for them. Reports of a NZ$190.6 million settlement with the Transmission Gully builder were seen in press only and cover one project.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. A count of days is not a cost: no source gives money per delay day. The Australian per-day preliminaries figure in this corpus is Australian and is not carried across. Not read: the Waka Kotahi final account data, NZS 3910 commentary, and Transmission Gully settlement papers.

Where it came from

• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare) (2023), Tracking the Trends: A report on statutory adjudication in Aotearoa New Zealand 2003-2023
  'Costs - How much does it cost?', 'Average costs all claims' table, pp.31-32 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Advisian for the New Zealand Treasury Infrastructure Transactions Unit: Reports time bars on variation and extension of time claims, often 10 working days; no delay cost amounts or counts.
• Russell McVeagh: Perception survey: employer variation and design problems are the commonest delay causes and 20% expect delays and extensions of time to cause disputes. Shares of respondents, no money.
• Atapattu, Massey University (PhD thesis): Delays in design rate 79% on a severity index (fourth of 53); contractual claims such as extensions of time with cost claims appear in only 8 articles of the literature review. Ratings and counts of papers, not costs.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Says delays and scope uncertainty raise costs in general terms; no delay cost per day or unclaimed amounts.
• Office of the Auditor-General: National audit of state highway maintenance contracts; reports on no delay claims.
• Mbachu and Taylor: Full text read (36 usable responses, mostly Wellington): ranks contractual risks by mean significance; no delay cost figure.
• Insurance Council of New Zealand: Insured claims from Cyclone Gabrielle (NZ$890 million at March 2023); it does not separate business interruption or contractors' standby costs.
• Adafin, Rotimi and Wilkinson: Cost plan against tender sum drift of 23.86% across 36 commercial projects supplied by the 64 project managers surveyed; pre-award estimating, not prolongation costs.

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources rank unforeseen ground conditions as a leading cost risk and say ground risk is transferred to contractors without reliance on reports, but none measures what it costs or how much goes unclaimed.

Sample. Search terms: New Zealand latent conditions claims; differing site conditions New Zealand contract; unforeseen ground conditions cost overrun New Zealand percentage; geotechnical risk allocation New Zealand; Transmission Gully ground conditions; NZS 3910 latent conditions; Te Waihanga geotechnical. A frequency exists: respondents to the Atapattu survey (92 completed responses) gave unforeseen ground conditions a severity index of 78%, sixth of 53 factors (Table 3.2); that is a rating of importance, not a cost. Press reports of ground surprises on single state highway projects were not opened. The Atapattu thesis is the source of record because it is the national New Zealand source with the most direct rating of unforeseen ground conditions, and its 106 road projects had a mean overrun of 19.5% that it does not split by cause.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The overrun of 19.5% on 106 New Zealand road projects covers every cause together and must not be read as the cost of ground conditions. Not read: tender-stage geotechnical baseline practice, NZS 3910 clause text, and claim files for ground conditions.

Where it came from

• Atapattu, Massey University (PhD thesis) (2023), A conceptual cost estimation model for the pre-design stage of road projects in New Zealand
  Chapter 3 survey, Table 3.2 (severity index by factor); chapter 4, Table 4.1 (106 road projects) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Advisian for the New Zealand Treasury Infrastructure Transactions Unit: Says ground risk is transferred to contractors by geotechnical reports issued without reliance clauses and that this has a cost, but gives no amount or count.
• Adafin, Rotimi and Wilkinson: Ranks site condition information among the top five risks to the gap between cost plan and tender sum (64 project managers). Pre-award estimating drift of 23.86% across 36 commercial projects, not claims on ground conditions.
• Roberts et al., New Zealand Geotechnical Society: NZGS paper saying unforeseen ground conditions cause cost over-runs; its evidence is a UK highways study and a UK table, not New Zealand data.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Says tunnelling in difficult ground can cost up to three times as much as in favourable ground and that further work is needed to quantify New Zealand's geological premium; no claim data.
• Mbachu and Taylor: Full text read (36 usable responses, mostly Wellington): site conditions are the most significant of six contractual risk categories (unforeseen site conditions mean 3.50, second of 21). A rating, no money.
• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare): Does not list latent or differing site conditions among the common adjudication issues and has not collected issue-type statistics.
• Russell McVeagh: Dispute and delay causes reported by respondents do not include ground conditions as a category; no money.
• Office of the Auditor-General: National audit of state highway maintenance contracts; says nothing on ground conditions or claims.

forfeited_entitlements/unclaimed_latent_conditions_none_nz · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources say contractors go unpaid for variations because of time bars and name variations as a dispute cause, but none measures how often or how much.

Sample. Search terms: New Zealand construction variations unpaid study; variation claims time bar New Zealand; Waka Kotahi state highway contract variations percentage; contractors not paid for variations New Zealand; NZS 3910 variations survey; Auditor-General Transport Agency claims variations; Transmission Gully claims. A frequency exists: Advisian 2019 reports an industry view that contractors are not being paid for variations because of time bars (often 10 working days), and 13% of Russell McVeagh 2020 respondents expect variations to cause disputes; neither is a cost. Transmission Gully payments to the builder were seen in press only and are one project, so they were not opened as sources. The Treasury report is the source of record because it is the national New Zealand source that deals directly with variation time bars.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The time-bar complaint is the view of contractors and industry bodies reported in a government-commissioned review, which also gives the public sector's reason for time bars; it is not a measurement. Not read: the Waka Kotahi final account data (an Official Information Act request would be needed), NZS 3910 commentary, and court decisions on time-barred claims.

Where it came from

• Advisian for the New Zealand Treasury Infrastructure Transactions Unit (2019), An examination of issues associated with the use of NZS Conditions of Contract
  executive summary (PDF p.3); "Time bars" (section 6, PDF p.24); "Risk transfer by stealth" (PDF p.30); NZIQS survey cited at PDF p.29 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Russell McVeagh: Perception survey: employer variations are the leading cause of delay and 13% of respondents expect variations to cause disputes. Shares of respondents; no money or count of unpaid variations.
• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare): Names claims for variations among the common issues in adjudication but says it has not collected statistics on issue types, so no count or value of variation claims.
• Atapattu, Massey University (PhD thesis): Rates variations and extra works 64% on a severity index (21st of 53). A rating of importance; the 19.5% mean overrun on 106 road projects is not split into variations or time-barred claims.
• Adafin, Rotimi and Wilkinson: Survey of 64 project managers on the gap between cost plan and tender sum (23.86% drift across 36 commercial projects). Pre-award estimating, not variations claimed or missed during a contract.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi, Auckland University of Technology: Of 40 High Court payment disputes 2008 to 2010, some concern variation claims, but the paper gives no split by issue and no value of variations unpaid.
• Raina, Auckland University of Technology (PhD thesis): Retention thesis; one subcontractor comment in Table 5.16 says negotiation losses on variations are a larger burden than retention, a single unquantified remark.
• Office of the Auditor-General: National audit of state highway maintenance contracts; does not report variations or claims.
• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Cites a California study that bids rise when scope later varies; no New Zealand variation data.
• Mbachu and Taylor: Full text read (36 usable responses, mostly Wellington): ranks contractual risks by mean significance. No money and no variation measure.

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources count how often payment is delayed or lost, and the 2014 MBIE impact statement estimates NZ$7 to 16 million of retentions written off a year against NZ$150 to 250 million held, but no source measures a share of contract value or of the amount claimed that is never paid, and the corpus has no denominator for a share of retention held.

Sample. Search terms: MBIE regulatory impact statement retention money Construction Contracts Act; KPMG implementation review retention money; New Zealand retention lost insolvency subcontractors; payment delays losses New Zealand construction survey; Ramachandra Rotimi payment; liquidation unsecured creditors dividend construction New Zealand; BDO construction survey retentions; adjudication default liability New Zealand. Frequencies exist, none a cost: 40% of 40 High Court payment cases ended with the claimant paid in full but late and 25% with a loss (Ramachandra and Rotimi 2011, Table 3); 12 of 16 liquidated trade-service firms paid trade creditors nothing; respondents say payment delays or losses touched 10 to 40% of contractors' and 10 to 80% of subcontractors' projects (2012 abstract); 15% of Tribunal adjudications rest on default liability. The BDO 2018 and 2019 survey reports were not found as PDFs and press coverage of them was not used. Of the two retention measures found, the 2014 MBIE estimate of annual write-offs is the closer to a loss, but it is a share of retentions held and the schema has no such denominator; Ramachandra and Rotimi 2011 is the source of record because it is the New Zealand national source read that records actual outcomes of unpaid construction payments in liquidation and court.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The liquidation records are 65 companies and the court records 40 cases, with outcomes classified by the authors; the payment loss is counted in cases, not in dollars of contract value. Retention held is not retention lost, and the 2020 MBIE benefits are a model. The 2014 MBIE write-off estimate is real survey data but is a share of retention held, so it cannot be filed until the schema has a retention-held denominator. Not read: the BDO 2018 and 2019 survey reports, the Mainzeal and Ebert liquidators' reports, and Companies Office insolvency statistics.

Where it came from

• Ramachandra and Rotimi, Auckland University of Technology (2011), The nature of payment problems in the New Zealand construction industry
  Table 1 (65 liquidated construction companies), the liquidation outcomes paragraphs, Table 2 and Table 3 (40 High Court payment disputes, 2008 to 2010) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Gives retention as 2 to 10 per cent of contract price and modelled benefits ($88.9m financing, $7.6m insolvency a year) taken from a New South Wales analysis; modelled, not observed losses.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Repeats retention of commonly 2% to 10% of contract value and the modelled $50 to $100 million benefit; a typical range held, not a share lost.
• Raina, Auckland University of Technology (PhD thesis): Survey of 187: retention is lost altogether sometimes or rarely for most subcontractors (Figure 5.8). Table 5.16 has subcontractors' own retention held and overdue, which the thesis adds to NZ$6,603,422 overdue. It is overdue, not lost (some rows are, and say so), self-reported, from a low-response self-selected set; the table also gives retention held, so overdue is roughly a third of it, but that is lateness of a held sum, not a loss, and has no denominator in the corpus.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi, Auckland University of Technology: Importance ratings of causes of payment problems from 115 practitioners; no amounts.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi, Auckland University of Technology: Full text read (263 of 1,600 invited responded): respondents report payment delays or losses on 10 to 40% of contractors' and 10 to 80% of subcontractors' projects (Figure 1); a share of projects, not of money.
• Department of Building and Housing: About residential consumer disputes and dispute resolution fees; no figures on unpaid claims or retention.
• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare): One tribunal: 15% of adjudications are brought solely on default liability (no payment schedule or unpaid scheduled amount) and 14% face jurisdictional challenges; the costs it reports are of the process, not of unpaid money.
• Russell McVeagh: 19% of respondents expect financial issues (slow payment, solvency) to cause disputes; shares of respondents, no money.
• Advisian for the New Zealand Treasury Infrastructure Transactions Unit: Calls for consistent retention and bonding terms across public contracts; no amounts.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: The nearest to a measured loss: from an October 2014 MBIE survey of the commercial construction sector (125 usable responses, about 13 per cent of the market) it estimates NZ$150 to 250 million of retentions held and NZ$7 to 16 million written off a year, 40 per cent of payees writing off 5 per cent or more of their retentions. MBIE itself flags significant uncertainty from survey design and extrapolation. It is a share of retention held, a denominator the finding schema does not offer, and it covers commercial building, not civil work, so it is not filed.
• KPMG for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Implementation review of the retention regime (71 of 223 firms responded). Gives case amounts only: NZ$4.47 million of post-regime retentions withheld at the Ebert receivership, of which subcontractors holding NZ$856,141 had no interest in the trust account, and about NZ$8.35 million in retention accounts across four insolvencies. It says the larger insolvency loss is the one to two months of unpaid claims and work in progress, with no amount.

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What it is. 4.9% of contract value, held until the defects liability period ends.

Sample. 419 clients and 508 contractors surveyed, UK, all construction. Retention was not received back at all after the defects liability period on 5% of tier-1, 10.8% of tier-2 and 13.1% of tier-3 contracts.

What it is not. The money is held, not lost, until it is not returned. UK data from 2017 with no comparable Australian study; the authors say some tier differences are not statistically robust.

Where it came from

• Pye Tait Consulting for BEIS (2017), Retentions in the Construction Industry
  executive summary; table p.92 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'closeout' is now the registers' cause 'unpaid_claims' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

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What it is. None - the only share-of-cost figures found are a single residential project and a perception survey.

Sample. UK national weather data and standard building activities; a model with a worked example, not observed projects. Found UK weather extends durations by an average of 21%.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. The research pass found only two cost-as-percent figures: 4% on one Sydney apartment project (sponsored content, residential) and 23.8% from a Pakistani perception survey the pass called implausible. Neither is a benchmark, so this register holds no ratio rather than a convenient one. See weather_wet_day_overhead for what IS measured.

Where it came from

• Ballesteros-Perez, Smith, Lloyd-Papworth & Cooke (2018), Incorporating the effect of weather in construction scheduling and management with sine wave curves
  abstract · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'weather' is now the registers' cause 'penalty_days' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)
• 2026-11-02 subtype moved from 'penalty_days' to 'unclaimed_delay_costs' on SM070 P2 review: the figure measures the cost of weather as a share of contract value (delay money, not time owed), which is what the delay-costs cause covers, not liquidated damages running on time never claimed (the penalty_days cause)

forfeited_entitlements/weather_market_ratio_none · GB · F41 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 50.9% of the amount claimed, across the 779 applications whose determination was released.

Sample. All 1,112 NSW adjudication applications in 2011-12, of which 779 reached a released determination. Claims under $100,000 (74% of determinations) were awarded about 84% of the amount claimed.

What it is not. One financial year, fourteen years old. It covers only disputes that reached a decision: the 333 applications withdrawn, settled or dismissed are outside it, so it is the recovery rate once adjudicated, not on every claim. Larger claims recovered a smaller share. Not comparable with the Queensland 2024-25 figure or the 2018-2023 success ratios, which divide by different populations.

Our arithmetic. $77,903,361 adjudicated / $153,143,608 claimed = 0.509 (Fig. 4, p.4). The report states the same result as 'about half of the aggregate amount claimed'.

Where it came from

• NSW Department of Finance & Services (statistics by the UNSW Adjudication Research + Reporting Unit) (2012), Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 - Adjudication Activity in New South Wales, Annual Report 2011/12
  Fig. 4 'Total claimed and adjudicated amounts 2011/12', p.4; Table 1, p.4; Table A, p.6 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'payment' is now the registers' cause 'payment_dispute' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

disputes/dispute_recovery_adjudication_nsw_2011 · AU-NSW · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 8.56% of the amount claimed, awarded across 214 decisions.

Sample. AU$81.9m awarded against AU$957.0m claimed across 214 decisions. Queensland only, security-of-payment disputes, all construction sectors.

What it is not. One A$634m claim dominates the total; without it the award rate is at most about 25%. The ratio is the research pass's own calculation, not the QBCC's. Do not use it as a typical loss rate.

Our arithmetic. AU$81.9m awarded / AU$957.0m claimed = 0.0856 (Table 23; the ratio is ours, not the QBCC's)

Where it came from

• Queensland Building and Construction Commission (2025), QBCC Annual Report 2024-2025, Table 23
  Table 23, p.23 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'payment' is now the registers' cause 'payment_dispute' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

disputes/dispute_recovery_adjudication · AU-QLD · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 14.9% of the amount claimed in adjudication decisions released, pooled over five financial years.

Range 8.56% to 45.6% (reported min max)

Sample. Every decision released by the QBCC Adjudication Registry under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017, 2020-21 to 2024-25: 983 decisions. By year: 2020-21 45.6%, 2021-22 30.6%, 2022-23 14.3%, 2023-24 27.3%, 2024-25 8.6%.

What it is not. Pooled dollars, so the largest claims dominate: 2024-25 alone is 65% of the amount claimed, and one A$634m claim sits inside it. The annual rate swings from 8.6% to 45.6%. It counts only disputes that reached a released decision, not every payment claim.

Our arithmetic. Awarded / claimed on decisions released, by year: 2020-21 $37,503,111 / $82,254,751 = 0.456; 2021-22 $15,854,534 / $51,816,751 = 0.306; 2022-23 $21,858,656 / $152,408,699 = 0.143; 2023-24 $61,524,294 / $225,306,009 = 0.273; 2024-25 $81,873,482 / $956,966,294 = 0.086. Pooled over five years: $218,614,077 / $1,468,752,504 = 0.1488.

Where it came from

• Queensland Building and Construction Commission (2021), QBCC Annual Report 2020-21
  Table 6, decisions released · source record
• Queensland Building and Construction Commission (2022), QBCC Annual Report 2021-22
  Table 6, decisions released · source record
• Queensland Building and Construction Commission (2023), QBCC Annual Report 2022-23
  Table 6, decisions released · source record
• Queensland Building and Construction Commission (2024), QBCC Annual Report 2023-24
  Table 6, decisions released · source record
• Queensland Building and Construction Commission (2025), QBCC Annual Report 2024-2025, Table 23
  Table 23, p.23 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'payment' is now the registers' cause 'payment_dispute' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

disputes/dispute_recovery_adjudication_qld_series · AU-QLD · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 12% of the amount claimed in all adjudication applications, including those that never reached a determination; NSW figure, with QLD and VIC as the range.

Range 12% to 35% (reported min max)

Sample. State regulators' adjudication statistics, NSW, QLD and VIC, 2018-2023: 9,784 applications, 5,657 determinations. NSW is 12%, QLD 18%, VIC 35%.

What it is not. The denominator includes the roughly 40% of applications that never reached a determination (withdrawn, settled or paid), so this understates what claimants recover on decided disputes: NSW 2011-12 on decided disputes only was 50.9%. A consultancy's analysis, with internal inconsistencies: Victoria's totals differ between the December 2023 and February 2024 editions, and the NSW prose total ($5.5bn) disagrees with its own table ($6.28bn).

Where it came from

• Liu (DGA Australia) (2023), Review of Adjudication Outcomes Across Australian States (NSW, Vic and Qld): Are the regimes effective?
  Table A, p.25; definition of the Success Ratio, p.26 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'payment' is now the registers' cause 'payment_dispute' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

disputes/dispute_recovery_adjudication_success_ratio · AU-NSW, AU-QLD, AU-VIC · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. Australian dollars lost per subcontractor reporting non-payment, excluding submissions about multiple creditors.

Sample. 146 submissions to a Queensland Government taskforce in 2019, mostly from South Queensland and from small contractors (90% under $12m revenue). Losses ranged from $1,500 to $6 million per individual.

What it is not. Self-reported and self-selected: the subcontractors who wrote in, not a sample of all subcontractors, and their own statement of what they were owed. The $112m multi-creditor submission is excluded from the average. Per case, not a share of contract value, so it is never multiplied by one.

Where it came from

• Special Joint Taskforce (Byrne; Queensland Police Service, QBCC and ODPP) (2019), Special Joint Taskforce: Investigating subcontractor non-payment in the Queensland building and construction industry
  Section 1.4.3 'Nature of submissions', p.16 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'payment' is now the registers' cause 'payment_dispute' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

disputes/dispute_subcontractor_nonpayment_qld · AU-QLD · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. Australian dollars claimed per incident: the amount of the respondent's most recent claim for delayed or disputed payment made under a security of payment Act, averaged over the respondents who had made one.

Sample. A survey commissioned for the Murray Review and run by AMR Interactive: 526 responses from contractors and subcontractors in all states and territories, circulated by industry associations on a voluntary basis. Only 23% of respondents had ever made a claim under security of payment laws, so the average can only be over those claimants; the report does not give their number, and does not say how many answered the amount question. The most common band among those who claimed in the last two years was $100,001 to $500,000 (25%). Not all of this money was awarded or lost: this is what was claimed.

What it is not. Money claimed, not money lost or awarded: the claim may be for delayed payment as well as disputed payment, and the report gives no outcome for it. A self-selected sample: 46.8% of respondents were from Queensland, 30.8% from Western Australia and 17.9% from NSW, which leaves 4.5% for Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, the Territories and the ACT together; 45% were electrical contractors and 73% worked for firms of 20 or fewer people. The average therefore describes small and medium trades in three states and is not a typical national claim. It is one claim per respondent (the most recent), as the respondents recalled it. The report writes 'average' and does not say whether it is a mean or a median; no median is given. The report does not date the survey; the Review ran during 2017, which is the price year used. A per-claim amount, not a share of contract value, so it is never multiplied by one.

Where it came from

• J Murray AM, for the Australian Government (Department of Jobs and Small Business) (2017), Review of Security of Payment Laws: Building Trust and Harmony
  Appendix B 'Survey of contractors', 'Security of payment laws and claims made', p.324 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Griffith University (Campos Gutierrez, Panuwatwanich and Walker): Payments were a factor in 50 of 78 Australian court cases, but that counts cases and gives no amounts.
• Liu (DGA Australia): Amounts claimed and determined for NSW, Queensland and Victoria only, so state-level and not an AU figure.
• NSW Department of Finance & Services (statistics by the UNSW Adjudication Research + Reporting Unit): NSW 2011-12 adjudication amounts only; state-level and fourteen years old.
• Western Sydney University and Griffith University (Rahnamayiezekavat and others): Payment is 31% of 230 NSW cases, a frequency for one state with no amounts.
• Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA): National arbitration caseload with total values but no payment-dispute split.

disputes/payment_dispute_sop_claim_amount_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no Australian national source found gives an amount, a share of contract value or a share of disputes for practical completion, defects, final account, retention or security held past release.

Sample. Search terms: retention money Australia estimate held; practical completion dispute Australia; final account dispute; defects liability dispute cost; building defects rectification national study; security of payment retention; Murray review, Productivity Commission, Infrastructure Australia, Arcadis, HKA CRUX. No national count of retention or final account disputes was found: the Murray review (p.270) says subcontractors often judge recovery of retention not worth its cost, but does not size it. A web estimate of about $18 billion of retentions outstanding was seen only in a vendor's back-of-envelope post and is not offered.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. Ten sources were opened (listed above); none states an Australian national amount or share for close-out disputes. The UK retention survey (Pye Tait 2017) is already in the corpus under another disease and does not apply to Australia. This is the next place to look for research, not a zero.

Where it came from

• J Murray AM, for the Australian Government (Department of Jobs and Small Business) (2017), Review of Security of Payment Laws: Building Trust and Harmony
  Section 15.5 'Retentions and bank guarantees', p.270 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Griffith University (Campos Gutierrez, Panuwatwanich and Walker): Damages (45 of 78 cases) mostly means defective work, but there is no close-out category and no amounts.
• Western Sydney University and Griffith University (Rahnamayiezekavat and others): Quality (workmanship) is 13% of 230 NSW cases (Table 3, p.9), but not split by stage and has no amounts; NSW only.
• Special Joint Taskforce (Byrne; Queensland Police Service, QBCC and ODPP): Queensland subcontractors report final claims cut for defects or liquidated damages; the $288,000 average loss is for all non-payment, not close-out, and is state-level.
• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu: Draws on 67 projects' completed final accounts, but measures change orders (11% of work value), not disputes about the final account.
• Productivity Commission: Silent on retention money, defects liability and final accounts (its 'retention' hits concern workforce).
• Australian Construction Industry Forum and Australasian Procurement and Construction Council: Mentions extensions to practical completion and defects in subsurface clauses only; no data.
• Infrastructure Australia: Names completion and commissioning as a risk by sector with no dispute data.
• HKA: Reports deficient workmanship on 20.1% of Americas projects; no close-out category and nothing Australian.
• Arcadis: Lists defective specifications among typical claims; no close-out stage, amounts or Australian split.
• Liu (DGA Australia): State adjudication totals for all payment claims; retention and final account claims are not separated.

disputes/closeout_dispute_none_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no Australian national source found gives an amount, a share of contract value or a share of a claim for disputes about extensions of time, liquidated damages or delay analysis.

Sample. Search terms: extension of time dispute Australia; liquidated damages dispute cost Australia; delay claims value Australian contractors survey; time-related costs adjudication; delay and disruption claims share of disputes Australia; Arcadis, HKA CRUX and Australian Disputes Centre or ACICA statistics. A frequency exists: timing was a factor in 38 of 78 Australian court cases from 1966 to 2012 (Campos Gutierrez 2013), and time disputes are 6% of 230 NSW cases 2002-2021, but neither is a cost.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. Eleven sources were opened (listed above); none states an Australian national amount or share for delay disputes. The case-count frequencies are for litigated cases only, from published judgments, and say nothing about what was at stake. This is the next place to look for research, not a zero.

Where it came from

• Griffith University (Campos Gutierrez, Panuwatwanich and Walker) (2013), Learning from the Past: Analysis of Factors Contributing to Construction Project Disputes in Australia
  Section 4.1 and Figure 2; Table 1 (timing row) · source record

Considered and set aside

• J Murray AM, for the Australian Government (Department of Jobs and Small Business): Says time-related cost claims are too complex for rapid adjudication (p.123) and that Victoria excludes them (p.119); a legal and policy account with no amounts or shares.
• Western Sydney University and Griffith University (Rahnamayiezekavat and others): Time disputes are 6% of 230 NSW cases (Table 3, p.9); a frequency, for one state, with no amounts.
• HKA: Global extension-of-time claims averaged 48.8% of contract schedules on projects completing from 2020; that is days, not money, and Oceania is shown only for claimed costs across all causes (13.3% of budgets), not delay.
• Arcadis: Its Australia section (pp.24-25) lists typical dispute reasons with no figures; global averages only.
• Arcadis: Global and North American averages and ranked causes with no Australian breakdown and no delay amounts.
• Productivity Commission: Discusses delays and risk allocation on public infrastructure and mentions litigation, but holds no data on delay dispute amounts or shares.
• Infrastructure Australia: Notes insurers reacting to a growth in claims for delay (p.49) without counting or valuing them.
• Grattan Institute: Single-project accounts of delay disputes (West Gate Tunnel) drawn from reports; no sample, no cause shares.
• Curtin University of Technology and University of Newcastle (Love, Davis, London and Jasper; CRC for Construction Innovation): Lists extension of time claims third in a 2006 Australian law firm ranking of dispute causes, second-hand and without percentages or amounts.
• Special Joint Taskforce (Byrne; Queensland Police Service, QBCC and ODPP): Queensland only; records subcontractor complaints about liquidated damages and time bars but no delay amounts.

disputes/delay_dispute_none_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no Australian national source found gives an amount, a share of contract value or a share of disputes for latent or differing site conditions.

Sample. Search terms: latent conditions dispute Australia; differing site conditions claims share Australia; unforeseen ground conditions claims contractors Australia survey; subsurface risk allocation disputes; geotechnical claims Australian infrastructure; Infrastructure Australia, ACIF and APCC, Arcadis and HKA CRUX. No frequency of latent condition disputes was found for Australia either; the only counts are rankings, and the closest is a perception survey on who should carry the risk.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. Ten sources were opened (listed above); none states an Australian national amount, share or outcome rate for latent condition disputes. The $1 billion Victorian case is one contested project and is not offered as a benchmark. This is the next place to look for research, not a zero.

Where it came from

• J Murray AM, for the Australian Government (Department of Jobs and Small Business) (2017), Review of Security of Payment Laws: Building Trust and Harmony
  Chapter 10, p.123 (latent conditions, time-related costs and disputed variations in adjudication) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Australian Construction Industry Forum and Australasian Procurement and Construction Council: National practice note on how Australian forms allocate subsurface risk; guidance with no claims data or amounts.
• Infrastructure Australia: Perceptions of who should carry latent condition risk (Figure 28, PDF p.47) from a market sounding survey; no dispute counts, amounts or outcomes.
• Productivity Commission: Explains who carries latent conditions under construct-only and design-and-construct contracts (PDF pp.108-109); no data on disputes.
• Grattan Institute: One Victorian case (West Gate Tunnel soil contamination) with an estimated $1 billion extra cost; a single contested project, not a sample.
• HKA: Unforeseen physical conditions triggered claims on 17.4% of Americas projects and 23.7% of renewable energy projects; Oceania has no split by cause and nothing is Australian.
• Arcadis: Differing site conditions ranked third in North America; Australia section lists no site-condition figures.
• Arcadis: Differing site conditions are new in third place in the North America ranking (p.14), not the global one (p.11); a rank, with no amounts and no Australian breakdown.
• Griffith University (Campos Gutierrez, Panuwatwanich and Walker): Site conditions are not among the five factors found in 78 Australian court cases; no figure.
• Curtin University of Technology and University of Newcastle (Love, Davis, London and Jasper; CRC for Construction Innovation): Lists site conditions fourth in a 2006 Australian law firm ranking of dispute causes, second-hand and without percentages.
• Western Sydney University and Griffith University (Rahnamayiezekavat and others): NSW only; its 13 case categories include no site-condition category, so no share.

disputes/latent_conditions_dispute_none_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no Australian national source found gives an amount, a share of contract value or a share of a claim for disputes about whether work was a variation or what it is worth.

Sample. Search terms: variation dispute Australia; disputed variations share of disputes; scope change disputes Australian contractors survey; change orders claims value Australia; variation claims adjudication; Arcadis, HKA CRUX, Murray review. A frequency exists: variations were a factor in 23 of 78 Australian court cases from 1966 to 2012 (Campos Gutierrez 2013), and variation is 3% of 230 NSW cases, but neither is a cost.

What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. Ten sources were opened (listed above); none states an Australian national amount or share of a claim for variation disputes. The 11% change-order figure measures change, not dispute, and comes from one contractor's projects. This is the next place to look for research, not a zero.

Where it came from

• Griffith University (Campos Gutierrez, Panuwatwanich and Walker) (2013), Learning from the Past: Analysis of Factors Contributing to Construction Project Disputes in Australia
  Section 4.1 and Figure 2; Table 1 (variation row) · source record

Considered and set aside

• J Murray AM, for the Australian Government (Department of Jobs and Small Business): Describes how the Acts treat disputed variations (Victoria caps some at 10% of the contract sum, p.119) and calls them too complex for rapid adjudication (p.123); legal text with no amounts or shares.
• Western Sydney University and Griffith University (Rahnamayiezekavat and others): Variation is 3% and scope 2% of 230 NSW cases (Table 3, p.9); one state, case counts, no amounts.
• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu: Australian civil: change orders were 11% of work value on 67 public infrastructure projects of one contractor. That is the size of variations, not of disputes about them, and is one contractor's own projects.
• Productivity Commission: Cites second-hand that 60 to 90 per cent of variations come from poor design documentation; a share of variations, not of disputes, with no amounts.
• HKA: Scope change was blamed on 33.4% of projects worldwide; global, a frequency, and not an Australian figure.
• Arcadis: Global cause ranking led by contract administration; its Australia section gives no variation figures.
• Arcadis: Owner-directed changes tied third among global causes; a rank with no amount and no Australian split.
• Curtin University of Technology and University of Newcastle (Love, Davis, London and Jasper; CRC for Construction Innovation): Reports a 2006 Australian law firm ranking with variations to scope first, second-hand and without percentages.
• Special Joint Taskforce (Byrne; Queensland Police Service, QBCC and ODPP): Queensland only; subcontractors report contention over what counts as a variation but give no amounts by cause.
• Liu (DGA Australia): NSW, Queensland and Victorian adjudication totals for all payment claims; no split for variations and not a national series.

disputes/variation_dispute_none_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 19.2% of the amount claimed: the claimant's own costs of taking a payment dispute to adjudication, averaged over all claims.

Sample. All statutory adjudications administered by the Building Disputes Tribunal, 2003-2023 (43 to 152 cases a year). Respondents' costs average 17.64% and the adjudicator's fee 16.37% of the claim.

What it is not. One tribunal's own caseload, not every New Zealand adjudication. An average of per-claim percentages, so small claims dominate: under $30,000 the claimant's costs are 21.6%, over $10 million 1.74%. The claimant is usually, not always, the contractor or subcontractor seeking payment.

Where it came from

• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare) (2023), Tracking the Trends: A report on statutory adjudication in Aotearoa New Zealand 2003-2023
  'Costs - How much does it cost?', 'Average costs all claims' table, pp.31-32 · source record

History

• 2026-09-26 Reclassified as derived contractor loss (schema 2.2.0), money spent fighting a dispute rather than the disputed loss itself.
• 2026-11-02 subtype 'payment' is now the registers' cause 'payment_dispute' (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

disputes/dispute_adjudication_party_costs_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources state a typical retention rate and count final-payment cases, but none measures the value of close-out disputes.

Sample. Searched: MBIE Construction Contracts Act review adjudication statistics retentions regulatory impact statement; New Zealand retention money regime review KPMG MBIE retentions held estimated value subcontractors; KPMG 2019 implementation review retention money regime survey percentage released late; Weathertight Homes Resolution Service claims statistics average claim value building defects; New Zealand construction disputes causes survey; New Zealand Building Disputes Tribunal AMINZ statistics. Frequencies exist: 28% of Russell McVeagh's 2026 respondents (95, late 2025) expect defective or incomplete work to cause disputes; 25% of the 40 High Court payment cases in Ramachandra and Rotimi 2011 were about final payments; retention is commonly 2% to 10% of contract value (MBIE 2020 and 2021, a stated practice range with no sample) or up to 10% on a sliding scale (KPMG 2019, 71 firms). Neither is a dispute cost or a share of contract value that was disputed. KPMG's review was readable at building.govt.nz and the Weathertight Homes statistics through the Internet Archive copy; neither holds a value for close-out disputes. Not opened: the Arcadis and HKA disputes reports (their published figures are global or North American; no New Zealand split was found); Jelodar et al. 2016 (ASCE, paywalled, read only as summarised in Silva et al. 2023).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. A retention rate is how much is held as routine security, so multiplying it by a contract value would overstate what is disputed at close-out. The UK retention figure in the corpus (entitlement_retention_held) is not New Zealand evidence.

Where it came from

• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare) (2023), Tracking the Trends: A report on statutory adjudication in Aotearoa New Zealand 2003-2023
  'Types of issues', p.29 (the tribunal says it has not collected detailed statistics on the types of issues referred; defective or incomplete work claims are listed as common) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Ramachandra and Rotimi: 40 High Court payment cases, 2008-2010: 10 (25%) concerned final payments and 1 retention, with claimed amounts per case but no close-out total or recovery rate for them.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: MBIE 2020 impact summary states retention is held at between 2 and 10 per cent of the contract price and paid after 12 months; a stated practice range with no sample, and not the amount disputed or overdue.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: MBIE 2021 disclosure statement repeats the 2% to 10% range and the 12 month release; no count or value of retention withheld or disputed.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Building Performance): MBIE retention complaints page: fine ceilings of $50,000 (individual) and $200,000 (company) for breaches; no complaint counts or outcomes.
• Standards New Zealand: Draft contract wording for practical completion, final account, defects liability and retention (clauses 9.11, 10.4, 11; p.57); mechanisms, not data.
• Russell McVeagh: 2020 survey: 19% expect quality or inexperience issues to cause disputes; no close-out item and no amounts.
• Hesketh Henry: Practitioner paper that divides disputes into payment and defect claims and notes defects surface long after completion; no figures.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 35 court cases: quality of works is the area of 4 cases and testing and inspection of 1; no final account, retention or practical completion category, no amounts.
• Russell McVeagh: 2026 survey of 95 New Zealand professionals (late 2025): 28% expect defective or incomplete work to cause disputes, and 92% say their contracts typically provide for retentions, 80% of those in cash (pp.17-19); shares of respondents, no dollars and no retention amount or rate.
• KPMG (for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): MBIE-commissioned review of the retention regime (survey of 223 firms, 71 responses, plus interviews): retention up to 10% of contract value, released half at practical completion and half at the end of the defects liability period; interviewees knew of no retention disputes before adjudicators. Its dollar figures are four insolvencies (about $8.35m held), not disputes, and it measures no value of retentions held or disputed.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: MBIE monthly counts of weathertightness claims (7,377 claims for 12,810 properties at 31 January 2019): counts only, no claim value, and homeowners' defect claims rather than contractor close-out disputes.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: Survey in which disputes over quality of work score 3.53 out of 5 as a cause of payment problems (a perception score, not money); retention appears only in its literature review.

disputes/closeout_dispute_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources name delay, extension-of-time and liquidated damages disputes but publish no amount, share of contract or share of claims for them.

Sample. Searched: New Zealand construction disputes causes survey variations delay payment latent conditions; MBIE Construction Contracts Act review adjudication statistics retentions; Arcadis Global Construction Disputes Report New Zealand average dispute value causes; New Zealand construction delay causes extension of time liquidated damages empirical study; New Zealand Building Disputes Tribunal AMINZ Resolution Institute statistics disputes caseload value. Frequencies exist: 20% of Russell McVeagh's 2020 respondents (no respondent count stated) and 68% of its 2026 respondents (95, late 2025) expect delays and extensions of time to cause disputes, shares that differ widely between editions and are not read as a trend, and the tribunal lists extension-of-time, delay-cost and liquidated damages claims among the issues it commonly sees, but it is not a cost. Not opened: the Arcadis and HKA disputes reports (their published figures are global or North American; no New Zealand split was found); Jelodar et al. 2016 (ASCE, paywalled, read only as summarised in Silva et al. 2023).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: the only New Zealand evidence found is frequency or perception, and the largest national source, the Building Disputes Tribunal, states that it has not collected detailed statistics on the types of issues in its adjudications. The tribunal's own average costs and claim sizes cover all claims together, not delay claims.

Where it came from

• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare) (2023), Tracking the Trends: A report on statutory adjudication in Aotearoa New Zealand 2003-2023
  'Types of issues', p.29 (the tribunal says it has not collected detailed statistics on the types of issues referred) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Russell McVeagh: A 2020 survey of New Zealand industry members: 20% named delays and extensions of time as an expected cause of disputes and employer variations as a leading cause of delay (pp.4, 10). Shares of respondents who expect a cause, not dollars.
• Hesketh Henry: Practitioner paper that puts delay and disruption costs among payment claims and gives no figures.
• Russell McVeagh: 2026 survey of 95 New Zealand professionals (late 2025): 68% expect delay and extension of time claims to cause disputes over the next two years, and 77% name principal-initiated variations to scope as a key driver of delay (pp.15, 18-19). Shares of respondents, no dollars.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 35 court cases coded by cause and area: no case is coded to delay or extension of time, and no amounts are recorded.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): Interviews with 14 experts on avoiding disputes, including agreeing extension-of-time mechanisms in advance; no frequencies or amounts.
• Standards New Zealand: Draft contract wording for extension-of-time grounds and notice (clause 10.3); a mechanism, not data.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: Survey rating time overrun 3.56 out of 5 as a cause of payment problems; a perception score, not a delay-dispute measure.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: 40 High Court payment cases, 2008-2010, with claimed amounts but no split by delay or extension of time.
• Department of Building and Housing: Regulatory impact statement on adjudication reform: no breakdown of disputes by cause, no values.

disputes/delay_dispute_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no New Zealand source found values disputes over ground or site conditions in dollars, a share of contract or a share of claims.

Sample. Searched: New Zealand differing site conditions latent conditions construction contract NZS 3910 dispute cases study; NZS 3910 latent conditions unforeseen ground conditions site conditions risk contractor principal; Te Waihanga Infrastructure Commission ground conditions risk geotechnical investigation cost certainty; Transmission Gully settlement CPB HEB claims ground conditions NZTA; New Zealand construction disputes causes survey. A frequency exists: 28% of Russell McVeagh's 2026 respondents (95, late 2025) expect unexpected site conditions to cause disputes over the next two years; it is a share of respondents, not a cost, and the 2020 edition did not ask the question. A project-level settlement on one large road project was reported in the press, but the agency's own releases could not be opened, so no figure is filed. Not opened: the Arcadis and HKA disputes reports (their published figures are global or North American; no New Zealand split was found); Jelodar et al. 2016 (ASCE, paywalled, read only as summarised in Silva et al. 2023).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The nearest evidence is a contract clause and a regulator's guidance on ground investigation, neither of which measures disputes. Australian latent-condition material is not New Zealand evidence.

Where it came from

• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare) (2023), Tracking the Trends: A report on statutory adjudication in Aotearoa New Zealand 2003-2023
  'Types of issues', p.29 (the tribunal says it has not collected detailed statistics on the types of issues referred; ground or site conditions are not among the issues it lists as common) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Russell McVeagh: 2020 survey of causes of disputes and delay: ground or site conditions are not an option or a named cause (pp.4-11).
• Russell McVeagh: 2026 survey of 95 New Zealand professionals (late 2025): 28% expect unexpected site conditions to cause disputes over the next two years (pp.18-19); the only New Zealand frequency for this cause found, a share of respondents with no dollars.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 35 court cases: no area or cause is ground or site conditions; one case has weather and environmental issues as its primary cause.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 14 expert interviews: pre-contract site investigation is one recommended measure; no frequency or amount for ground disputes.
• Standards New Zealand: Draft contract wording for unforeseen physical conditions that an experienced contractor could not reasonably have foreseen (clause 9.5): how the risk is allocated, not how often it is disputed or what it costs.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Building Performance): MBIE regulator guidance that under-investment in ground investigation correlates with cost overruns, evidenced by a 1994 UK highways study; no New Zealand figure.
• Hesketh Henry: Practitioner paper that lists inadequate scoping and design among causes of claims; ground conditions are not mentioned.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: 40 High Court payment cases: payment claims only, with no ground-condition category.
• Department of Building and Housing: Regulatory impact statement on adjudication reform: no breakdown of disputes by cause, no values.

disputes/latent_conditions_dispute_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - New Zealand sources name variation claims as a common dispute issue but publish no amount, share of contract or share of claims for them.

Sample. Searched: New Zealand construction disputes causes survey variations delay payment latent conditions; New Zealand construction variations cost study Mbachu Domingo variation orders percentage of contract value; MBIE Construction Contracts Act review adjudication statistics; Silva Domingo Ameer Ali court cases New Zealand; Te Waihanga MBIE Law Commission construction disputes cost value adjudication. Frequencies exist: 13% of Russell McVeagh's 2020 respondents (no respondent count stated) expect variations to cause disputes, 39% of its 2026 respondents (95, late 2025) expect changes to the original scope of work to cause them (a different wording, so the two are not read as a trend), and variation entitlement is the area of 2 of 35 court cases in Silva et al. 2023 (my reading of the figure's matrix, not stated in the text), but none is a cost. Not opened: the Arcadis and HKA disputes reports (their published figures are global or North American; no New Zealand split was found); Jelodar et al. 2016 (ASCE, paywalled, read only as summarised in Silva et al. 2023).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. No New Zealand source states what variation disputes are worth, as an amount, a share of contract value or a share of the amount claimed. The Australian and North American variation figures in the corpus are not New Zealand evidence.

Where it came from

• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare) (2023), Tracking the Trends: A report on statutory adjudication in Aotearoa New Zealand 2003-2023
  'Types of issues', p.29 (the tribunal says it has not collected detailed statistics on the types of issues referred) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Russell McVeagh: 2020 survey: 13% of respondents expect variations to cause disputes and employer variations are seen as a leading cause of delay (pp.4, 10-11). Shares of respondents, no dollars.
• Russell McVeagh: 2026 survey of 95 New Zealand professionals (late 2025): 39% expect changes to the original scope of work to cause disputes over the next two years (pp.18-19); share of respondents, no dollars.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 35 court cases: Figure 3 marks variation entitlement in 2 cases and variation procedural in 2; no amounts. Too few cases to state a share.
• Hesketh Henry: Practitioner paper that puts variations among payment claims; no figures.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 14 expert interviews on pre-contract steps (variation pricing rates and timeframes); counts of respondents, no dispute frequencies or amounts.
• Standards New Zealand: Draft contract wording for variations, and for unforeseen conditions being treated as a variation (clause 9.5); a mechanism, not data.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: 40 High Court payment cases say the disputes deal with variation costs among other items, with no split of claimed amounts.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: Survey of payment problems whose introduction cites valuation of variations as a major subject of adjudication; the survey itself has no variation item.
• Department of Building and Housing: Regulatory impact statement on adjudication reform: no breakdown of disputes by cause, no values.

disputes/variation_dispute_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 83% of total arbitration costs, being each party's own lawyers, experts and witnesses.

Sample. 221 ICC awards from 2012, all sectors - not construction-specific.

What it is not. The share is of arbitration cost, not of contract value, which is why the unit is a ratio but the basis is explicitly the arbitration bill. Litigation to recovery is not linear: fighting is expensive in people's time.

Where it came from

• ICC Commission (2015), Decisions on Costs in International Arbitration
  p.5, para 2 · source record

History

• 2026-09-26 Reclassified as derived contractor loss (schema 2.2.0), money spent fighting a dispute rather than the disputed loss itself.

disputes/dispute_party_costs_share · GLOBAL · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 33.4% of contract budget.

Sample. 2,200+ projects in 114 countries, US$2.433tn of capex, average US$1.25bn. Time extensions sought averaged 65.8% of planned schedules.

What it is not. CEILING, NOT TYPICAL CASE. These are HKA's own engagements - mostly disputed megaprojects that reached expert investigation. Read it as the top of the range for a job already in trouble, not the exposure on an ordinary civil contract.

Where it came from

• HKA (2025), From Insight to Foresight
  'Cumulative impacts' section of the report summary, Internet Archive copy of 8 September 2026 (full report requires a sign-up) · source record

disputes/dispute_sums_at_stake · GLOBAL · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. US dollars per dispute: the claimed value of the additional work or event as asserted by the contractor.

Sample. Arcadis North America survey, 2024 data year, published June 2025. Average dispute length 12.5 months. The number of respondents is not stated.

What it is not. A consultancy's view of the disputes it sees, in North America only, and the value claimed by the contractor, not the amount won. A mean dragged up by a few very large disputes: 80% of claims are US$25 million or less and almost half under US$5 million. Not a share of contract value, so it is never multiplied by one.

Where it came from

• Arcadis (2025), Construction Disputes in Motion: Speed, Agility, and Adapting to Change (15th Annual Construction Disputes Report, North America)
  'Overall Findings', PDF p.5-6 (average dispute value and length charts); definition, p.2 sidebar; methodology, p.23 · source record

disputes/dispute_value_north_america · CA, US · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 19% of the total cost, being the employer's share including workers' compensation premiums.

Sample. AU$61.8 billion total (4.1% of GDP), of which construction was AU$5.84 billion. Employers bear 5% excluding premiums, about 19% including them. The UK is almost identical at about 19% (HSE 2025).

What it is not. SOCIETAL, NOT THE CONTRACTOR'S BILL. Workers and the community bear the rest - recorded so the surface can show the real picture and exclude it from the headline. The report is internally inconsistent (74/21 in the summary, 77/18 in para 89) and its latest edition covers 2012-13. No construction-specific employer share exists.

Where it came from

• Safe Work Australia (2015), The Cost of Work-related Injury and Illness for Australian Employers, Workers and the Community: 2012-13
  paras 89, 92; executive summary · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'whs' dropped: it is not one of non_compliance's causes, so the figure covers the disease as a whole (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

non_compliance/noncompliance_employer_share · AU · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. AUD per incident to the employer, ranging AU$1,200 (short absence) to AU$97,408 (fatality).

Range A$1,200 to A$97,408 (reported min max)

Sample. Built from the Safe Work Australia 2012-13 dataset plus three Tier-two contractor case studies, Australia. Employer-borne: AU$1,200 (58.82%) for a short absence, AU$6,211 for a long absence, AU$50,175 for full incapacity, AU$97,408 for a fatality (2.23% of that accident's total cost).

What it is not. Not independent - it re-cuts the same Safe Work Australia data and is checked against only three case studies, with no averaged employer cost per accident. Severity-specific, so the high end is a fatality and not a typical incident. Penalties are separate and can reach AU$17.0m (Category 1, Commonwealth) or AU$20m (industrial manslaughter, NSW). Price year taken from the source's data year; not yet confirmed against the source's tables.

Where it came from

• Allison, Hon & Xia (2019), Construction accidents in Australia: Evaluating the true costs · free copy
  tables 6 and 7 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'whs' dropped: it is not one of non_compliance's causes, so the figure covers the disease as a whole (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

non_compliance/noncompliance_cost_per_incident · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national sources count accredited companies and audit findings; licence fines and prequalification sanctions found are single state cases or carry no dollar amount.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; national prequalification system suspension cancellation; unlicensed contractor penalty. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost: 606 companies held Federal Safety Commissioner accreditation at the end of 2024, 48 were newly accredited, and 3,319 corrective action reports were raised in 657 audits (a stated compliance rate of 80.9%); the report states no count of suspensions or cancellations. Not opened because the page refused automated access (403): the Austroads national prequalification page and the South Australian DIT prequalification guidelines.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. Losing accreditation or prequalification costs the work it gates, and no national source read prices that. Licence fines are set and published state by state, and the examples found are individual cases. The source of record measures audit findings, not money.

Where it came from

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (2025), Federal Safety Commissioner Annual Data Report 2024
  Accreditation Scheme and Scheme Audits sections (Tables 1 and 6 to 12); Workers' Compensation Premium Rates Over Time (Table 23) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations: Reviews the accreditation scheme, its powers and cost recovery; no fine or revenue lost for a lapsed accreditation.
• Department of Transport and Main Roads (Queensland): Queensland prequalification manual: suspension, downgrade or cancellation after a show cause notice, with no dollar amount and no cost of lost work.
• Queensland Building and Construction Commission: Queensland only: a licensee fined AU$6,500 plus AU$11,000 restitution for work outside the licence class; one case from 2021.
• Labour Hire Authority (Victoria): Victoria only: AU$759,674 in total penalties on five companies and three directors for unlicensed labour hire; one case and a labour hire licence, not a contractor licence.
• Safe Work Australia: National average fine per WHS prosecution is not split by licence or accreditation breach.
• Safe Work Australia: No field for the kind of failure; licensing and accreditation lapses cannot be isolated.
• Safe Work Australia: National WHS fines and notices only; nothing on contractor licensing or prequalification.
• National Environmental Protection Agency: Fines for breaching environmental approval conditions are a site matter and do not touch a company's licence or prequalification status.

non_compliance/company_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national statistics give premium rates and claim costs for insured employers, not the cost of uninsured contractors or under-declared wages.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; uninsured contractors workers compensation premium avoidance under-declared wages construction; national estimate workers compensation premium underpayment black economy; AFCA datacube business insurance claim denied. Not opened because the page refused automated access (403): the NSW regulator's review of under-insurance, WorkCover WA's page on uninsured employers, AFCA's datacube page. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost of missing cover: the standardised construction premium rate was 2.29% of payroll in 2021-22 against 1.34% for all industries; that is what insured employers pay, and it is a rate on payroll that the schema cannot hold (no payroll denominator).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The construction premium rate would price the premium avoided by under-declaring, but no national source read states how much payroll goes undeclared or uninsured, so a loss cannot be built without inventing it. The state figures found are scheme totals for one state.

Where it came from

• Safe Work Australia (2023), Comparative Performance Monitoring Report 25th edition: Premiums
  Australian average premium rates by industry, p.8; Standardised premium rates for Construction by jurisdiction, p.11 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Table 23 reports accredited companies' premium rate change over time (57% reduced it by an average 33% after three years); a benefit of accreditation, not a cost of lacking cover.
• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations: Quotes earlier scheme premium reduction data (more than 60% of companies, 37% after six years); nothing on uninsured work or under-declared wages.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation AU$18,500 per serious claim is what schemes paid on claims; it does not separate claims on uninsured or under-insured employers.
• WorkCover Queensland: Queensland only: unpaid premium plus a penalty of 100% of it, AU$4,181,129 premium raised for uninsured or under-insured employers in 2025-26 to 30 September 2025, all industries; a state scheme total, not a per-job figure.
• Deloitte Access Economics for Safe Work Australia: Modelled economy-wide gain (AU$28.6 billion a year); not a cost to a contractor of an insurance gap.
• Safe Work Australia: WHS prosecutions do not cover insurance offences, and the average fine is not split by breach.
• Safe Work Australia: Records WHS Act and Regulation offences only; no insurance field.
• Safe Work Australia: Enforcement tables cover WHS notices and fines, not workers compensation premium compliance.

non_compliance/insurance_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national fine and claim statistics are not split by licence, ticket or induction breach, and the one licence-breach fine found is a single Queensland case.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; unlicensed high risk work licence fine court average. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost: in the Federal Safety Commissioner's 2024 audits the highest corrective action issue rate for accredited companies was 52% (40 reports in 77 tests) for temporary structures being installed by a competent person, and for non-accredited applicants 43% for training of managers and supervisors in WHS.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The national fine data are real but are not split by the kind of breach, and the only licence-breach fine amounts found are single state court reports. The source of record is the most relevant national source read; it measures audit findings, not money.

Where it came from

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (2025), Federal Safety Commissioner Annual Data Report 2024
  Accreditation Scheme and Scheme Audits sections (Tables 1 and 6 to 12); Workers' Compensation Premium Rates Over Time (Table 23) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Safe Work Australia: National average fine AU$116,979 per prosecution in 2024 (317 prosecutions, 47% in construction), but across every kind of WHS breach and every industry; not attributable to licences, tickets or inductions.
• Safe Work Australia: The repository records the Act and regulation section cited as free text and no field for the kind of failure, so a licence or induction average cannot be read without coding cases by hand.
• Safe Work Australia: National fines ordered (AU$26,050 thousand in 2021-22 over 301 convictions, orders or agreements) are not split by breach type or industry.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation of AU$18,500 per serious claim is a cost per injury of any cause; the claims data does not record whether a missing ticket or licence was the cause.
• Safe Work Australia: Regulations 39 (training and instruction) and 81 (high risk work licence) set the duties, but offences carry tiers, not dollar amounts, and the model is not itself in force.
• Office of the Work Health and Safety Prosecutor (Queensland): One Queensland case: a worker fined AU$3,500 against a AU$20,000 maximum for operating a forklift without the right licence class. State only, one case.
• Ehsan Gharaie (RMIT University), The Conversation: Names inadequate supervision (18 of 81 plant deaths) among underlying causes; an author summary with no cost figure.
• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations: Reviews the accreditation scheme and quotes premium reductions; contains no fine or penalty for tickets or inductions.
• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Counts corrective action reports on mobile plant and scaffolding systems of work (competence, training); counts only, no money.
• RMIT University for SafeWork NSW: New South Wales study naming operator competency and licensing among crane incident factors; keyword scan found no cost or fine amounts.

non_compliance/people_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national statistics count plant incidents and audit findings but give no fine, stop-work cost or cost per incident for plant.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; mobile plant crane incident cost per incident; plant registration prestart fine. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost: mobile plant was the most frequent high-risk hazard in incidents reported to the Federal Safety Commissioner in 2015-2019 (548 of 1,737) and drew 1,954 of 4,447 high-risk corrective action reports (44%) in 2017-2019.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. Plant is well counted in Australian national data and not priced. A crane or mobile plant incident has fines and compensation costs, but none of the national sources read states one for plant.

Where it came from

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (2020), FSC Data: Mobile Plant and Scaffolding
  The whole data sheet: high-risk hazard incidents 2015-2019 and corrective action reports 2017-2019 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: 2024 audit findings by criterion with issue rates; counts only, no penalty or cost for plant.
• Safe Work Australia: National average fine AU$116,979 per prosecution across all breaches; no plant breakdown.
• Safe Work Australia: No field for the kind of failure, so plant-registration or prestart fines cannot be isolated without coding free text.
• Safe Work Australia: 5,700 prohibition notices across Australia in 2021-22, a stop-work count with no cost and no plant split.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation AU$18,500 per serious claim covers every injury cause, not plant incidents.
• Safe Work Australia: Regulation 246 requires registration of listed plant; the penalty is a tier with no dollar amount in the model.
• Ehsan Gharaie (RMIT University), The Conversation: Study of 81 construction plant deaths (trucks and excavators most frequent, 15 crane deaths); an author summary of a causes study; the paper itself is paywalled and only its abstract was read, which holds no cost. The thinnest entry here.
• RMIT University for SafeWork NSW: New South Wales crane incident study; keyword scan of the full text found no incident cost or fine amount.

non_compliance/plant_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - the one national money series found, EPBC Act infringement notices, is a statutory penalty (60 penalty units) and not a measured cost, and the national fine statistics are not split by kind of breach.

Sample. National EPA register of paid infringement notices (entries dated 2025, re-added by the reviewer): 32 notices in 21 entries, AU$628,500 in all, a mean of AU$19,640.63 per notice. Every one of the 32 notices is either AU$18,780 (5) or AU$19,800 (27), which is 60 penalty units at an implied unit value of AU$313 and AU$330; 2026 entries show AU$19,800 and AU$21,840 (unit value AU$364). The mean therefore restates the penalty unit rate in force on each notice date and measures no cost; it was a figure in the first draft of this record and was removed at review. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The EPBC notice is a fixed statutory amount, so averaging it measures the penalty unit value and not what a breach costs anyone. It also covers one federal Act (EPBC approval conditions) and not permits to work, traffic management plans, state environmental licences or asbestos registers; most notices on the register are for late or missing compliance reports and management plans, and the notice goes to the approval holder or the third party carrying out the action, who is often an owner or developer and not a contractor. A fine only: the stop-work, rectification and clean-up costs that follow a breach are not in it.

Where it came from

• National Environmental Protection Agency (2026), Infringement notices and register of paid infringement notices
  Penalties paragraph and "Register of paid infringement notices", entries dated January to December 2025 (21 entries) and 2026 to 22 October · source record

Considered and set aside

• Office of the Work Health and Safety Prosecutor (Queensland): Queensland only and one case: a painter fined AU$3,000 against a AU$153,600 maximum for spraying an asbestos roof. Shows asbestos-related site breaches are prosecuted, but a state-only single case cannot fill the national cell.
• Safe Work Australia: Regulation 425 requires an asbestos register and carries a tier G monetary penalty, but the model regulations give no dollar amount, are not themselves in force, and so give the asbestos register part of the site cause no figure.
• Safe Work Australia: National average fine of AU$116,979 per prosecution (2024) covers every WHS breach and cannot be attributed to permits, traffic management, environment or asbestos.
• Safe Work Australia: No field for the kind of failure; a permit, traffic plan or asbestos register breach cannot be isolated.
• Safe Work Australia: 5,700 prohibition notices and AU$26,050 thousand in court fines nationally in 2021-22, none split by kind of breach or industry.
• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Counts 249 road or traffic high-risk incidents among 1,737 reported in 2015-2019; counts only, no cost.
• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Audit findings against accredited companies' systems, including traffic management plan criteria, as issue rates; no penalty or cost.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation AU$18,500 per serious claim covers every injury cause and cannot be tied to a permit, traffic plan, environmental condition or asbestos register.

non_compliance/site_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - the only fines found that turn on a business or worker lacking a licence are three WorkSafe asbestos prosecutions, too few and too unlike to summarise, and each fine covers a whole charge sheet.

Sample. WorkSafe's court summary register searched on "asbestos" (24 results on 2026-11-02), "licence" and "unlicensed" in building and construction. Three entries say the person removing asbestos held no removal licence and were decided under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015: Knight $3,000 (2 November 2018, an individual), Sibley $15,000 (11 November 2020, an individual) and Wilson Building Timaru Limited $66,000 (29 September 2023, a company whose worker was unlicensed). A fourth, Essential Homes ($30,000, 2020), was charged mainly with breaching a prohibition notice that included unlicensed removal. The licence regimes found are the asbestos removal licences (Class A and B) and the LBP scheme; no general contractor licence, prequalification or accreditation regime with a published penalty was found.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. A median of the three unlicensed removal fines ($15,000, range $3,000 to $66,000) was considered and rejected. A median of three is not a statistic, because the three differ twenty-two fold, two defendants are individuals and one a company, each fine covers the whole charge sheet (Wilson's reflects four days of exposure to other workers' fibres, not the missing licence alone), and all three already sit inside the nine-case set filed under site_compliance, so a second figure would count the same prosecutions twice. The cell is open for research that finds a licence, prequalification or accreditation regime with a published cost, such as a principal's panel exclusion, which this search did not reach.

Where it came from

• WorkSafe New Zealand (2025), WorkSafe court summaries (prosecutions register): asbestos prosecutions in building and construction
  register entries found by the search term "asbestos" (24 results on 2026-11-02); each entry's "The offence" and "The decision" sections: dong-sh-auckland-limited, inspired-enterprises-limited, lawrence-gannaway, wilson-building-timaru-limited, ecologically-sound-demolition-limited, glenn-warwick-sibley, crafar-crouch-construction-limited-b, essential-homes-limited, topham-holding-limited, richard-john-knight, john-carstairs-robertson · source record

Considered and set aside

• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Unlicensed restricted building work by an individual under the LBP scheme, a worker licence filed under people_compliance, not a licence the business holds.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Board disciplinary fines on licensed practitioners ($500 to $5,000 over four years, no average) are for poor work or supervision, not for lacking a licence.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 59 fines among 81 penalties in 2024/25 with no dollar amounts, and covers licensed individuals only.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 56 fines in 2023/24 with no dollar amounts; the same limit.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts of notices and prosecutions only, no dollar value and no licence cause.
• Hesketh Henry: An all-sector average of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence from 2018, with no split by licence or accreditation.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Construction's share of harm and deaths, with no cost figure and nothing on licences or accreditation held by a business.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: A company fined $351,563 on the whole section 36 duty after an unlicensed driver died; none of it can be attributed to a licence the business lacked.

non_compliance/company_compliance_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no source read gives a cost of uninsured contractors, denied claims or under-declared ACC earnings in New Zealand construction.

Sample. Searched: ACC levy penalties, uncovered or under-declared employers, uninsured contractors, public liability and contract works cover, declined claims, WorkSafe court summary register ("insurance" returned 8 entries and "uninsured" none; the 8 were not read). Review read the Accident Compensation Act 2001 on legislation.govt.nz and ACC's Q2 2026 work statistics deck, which the first search could not open; neither holds a defensible money figure. ACC's OIA responses and the ACC work-injury statistics web page returned PDF-only or empty pages. A frequency exists that the schema cannot hold: 54% of 170 surveyed renovators did not consider contract works insurance (AMI and Ipsos, 2022), which is homeowners, not contractors.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. ACC guidance says levies apply to employers and to contractors paid schedular payments, and gives no penalty amount; the Act gives only a rate and a cap. ACC publishes counts of construction claims but costs only across all industries, so a cost per construction claim does not exist in anything read, and it would measure injury cost to the scheme rather than the cost of cover that lapsed. No regulator count of uninsured contractors was found.

Where it came from

• Business.govt.nz (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) (2026), What you pay for your employees: ACC levies
  sections on employer invoicing, penalties for late payment, and contractors · source record

Considered and set aside

• Insurance Business NZ: AMI and Ipsos survey of 536 homeowners: 54% of 170 renovators did not consider contract works insurance. A frequency from homeowners, with no dollar value and no damaged-project count.
• BizCover New Zealand: One broker's average monthly premiums (builders $60); a price of cover, not the cost of lacking it.
• Marsh New Zealand for NZ Transport Agency: NZTA principal-arranged public liability: $100,000,000 limit, $500,000 deductible; shows cover is a contract requirement but gives no loss from cover that failed.
• Howden New Zealand: ACC experience rating (penalties up to 75%, moving to 100%) is a levy loading for claims history, not a cost of under-declared wages, and is not construction-specific.
• Business Insurance: Auditor-General survey of public entities: less than half of NZ$225 billion of public assets insured; public owners, no dollar uninsured loss, no contractors.
• Insurance Business NZ: States public liability is often a contract requirement; no figures on uninsured contractors or denials.
• Insurance Council of New Zealand: The industry body publishes claims and weather-loss data but nothing on contract works, public liability or declined claims for contractors.
• New Zealand Parliament (legislation.govt.nz): The ACC levy penalty rule is in the statute: interest, then 10% of the total unpaid after 210 days and again every 180 days, capped at three times the unpaid levy (section 250). A rate and a cap, not an observed cost, and the Act counts no employer who under-declared.
• Accident Compensation Corporation: ACC quarterly statistics: construction had 27,121 new work claims in 2025, but costs are given for all industries only ($1,254,610,727 active costs, 271,126 active claims), so there is no cost per construction claim, and no link to cover that lapsed.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: MBIE estimates latent defects average about $23,000 per new house in 2025, but does not say who bears the cost or whether insurance responded.

non_compliance/insurance_compliance_none_nz · NZ · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. NZD fine imposed on one tradesperson for carrying out restricted building work while his Licensed Building Practitioner licence was suspended; excludes the $4,880.81 reparation, $1,000 emotional harm and two $1,000 fines for false statements in the same case.

Range NZ$2,000 to NZ$5,600 (across studies)

Sample. One New Zealand case read in MBIE's own media release, with three further MBIE prosecutions of the same offence read in one MBIE release and two news reports. Searches: WorkSafe court summaries register ("licence", "unlicensed", "unqualified", "training", "induction", "competent", "certificate of competence", "forklift licence"), MBIE and Building Practitioners Board reports, news searches on unlicensed restricted building work. Frequencies exist that the schema cannot hold: the Board upholds about 100 complaints or inquiries a year and imposed 59 fines among 81 penalties in 2024/25 (no dollar amounts); WorkSafe issued 1,039 improvement notices in one quarter; Draper (Taupo, 2019) was ordered to pay $3,000 for claiming to be an LBP, which the report does not call a fine.

What it is not. A single case, graded low, and a thin fill for the cell: one fine in one court (Kaitaia) is not a national figure, though Building Act section 85 and MBIE as prosecutor are national. Dodd is the value because MBIE's own release states the fine separately from the reparation and false-statement fines; he held an LBP licence that was suspended, whereas Ross, Faulkner and Williams were never licensed, so this is a suspended licence rather than none. The other three fall at $2,000, $2,000 and $5,600, and Dodd sits inside that range. They were found by search, not drawn as a sample: I found no complete MBIE list, and other prosecutions exist (a $10,000 fine reported in 2025 for unlicensed work with forged documents appeared in search results and was not read). Two of the four cases are news accounts, not court records. The fine is paid by the individual tradesperson and is a sentence on the offence, not the cost of the licence lapse. The only licence regime read here is the LBP scheme for restricted building work; WorkSafe's crane page shows that no crane operator ticket is required.

Where it came from

• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2023), Unlicensed builder fined for carrying out restricted building work
  paragraph on the sentence: $3,279.80 fine for carrying out restricted building work while unlicensed · source record
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2017), Unlicensed builder fined $2,000 for restricted building work without consent
  headline and first paragraph: $2,000 fine · source record
• 1News (2019), Unlicensed builders fined for carrying out restricted work
  second case (Faulkner): $2,000 fine, $4,500 reparation · source record
• 1News (2026), Unlicensed builder fined over botched Carterton home build
  second paragraph: $5,600 fine, $1,000 emotional harm reparation, $130 costs · source record

Considered and set aside

• 1News: A separate regime (Electricity Act 1992, Electrical Workers Registration Board). Six prosecutions heard March to July 2024 with fines of $1,200 to $9,000 ($28,950 in all) are reported by a news article; the Board's own prosecution page lists no amounts. A better base for a people figure than one building case, once the Board's releases are read, and not mixed in here because the licence and the trade differ.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Gives the Board's disciplinary fines for LBPs as a range of $500 to $5,000 over four years but no average, and a disciplinary fine is for poor work or supervision by a person who holds a licence, not for working without one.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 59 fines among 81 penalties in 2024/25 but states no dollar amounts, and covers licensed practitioners only.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 56 fines in 2023/24 with no dollar amounts; the same limit as the 2025 report.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: An unlicensed driver died, but the $351,563 fine was for the whole section 36 duty failure and cannot be split to the missing licence.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Competence of a harness user was one strand of a risk-assessment failure, and no fine was in fact imposed because the defendant could not pay.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: States that holding a crane unit standard or certificate is not mandatory, so a crane operator without one breaches no ticket requirement that a penalty could be counted against.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts improvement notices (1,039), prohibition notices (254) and prosecutions disposed (12) for one quarter, with no dollar value and no cause split.
• Hesketh Henry: An average fine of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence from the Act's first two years, all sectors and all causes, from the firm's own count.

non_compliance/people_restricted_building_work_unlicensed_fine_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no source read gives a fine, stop-work cost or incident cost attributed to plant registration, inspection or category failure in New Zealand.

Sample. WorkSafe court summary register searched on "crane", "certificate of inspection", "pressure equipment", "crane inspection", "plant registration", "prestart", "registration", "forklift licence" (building and construction, and all industries); WorkSafe cranes and construction pages; the quarterly report; a law-firm count of fines. The register's free-text search is not selective ("plant registration" returned all 608 entries), so the entries read were those whose titles and facts were plant-related; none was charged for an unregistered or uncertified machine, except KNCC and Metallic Sweeping, where a certificate of inspection was one particular among several. Frequencies exist that the schema cannot hold: construction is about 15% of work-related fatalities and serious injuries, with 9 to 10 deaths a year, and vehicles and mobile machinery are a WorkSafe focus area.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The nearest evidence is KNCC (2023), a construction company charged under section 36 with four particulars, one of which was using a truck loader crane and slings without a current certificate of inspection. The fine ($380,000, cut to $240,000 for financial capacity) covers the whole charge, so no part of it can be assigned to the plant certificate. The 1999 pressure equipment and cranes regulations, which require those certificates, lost their offence and penalty provisions in 2016, so plant breaches are pleaded as general duty failures. This is a search of public registers and pages, not of court files.

Where it came from

• WorkSafe New Zealand (2023), KNCC Limited (court summary, 2023)
  summary page kncc-limited-2: The offence, The decision · source record

Considered and set aside

• WorkSafe New Zealand: States that holding a crane unit standard or certificate is not mandatory for an operator, which is a people question; it holds no cost and says nothing on plant registration or inspection.
• New Zealand Parliament (legislation.govt.nz): The regulations that require certificates of inspection for cranes and pressure equipment. Their offences and penalties (Part 6, regulation 39) were revoked on 4 April 2016, so a missing certificate is no longer a stand-alone offence with a penalty of its own, and the text holds no dollar figure.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: The one prosecution found where a crane certificate of inspection is a named particular outside the KNCC case ($15,000 over three years, 2022), but the industry is waste services and the fine is for the whole section 36 charge, including a detached hook.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Crane lift and collapsed temporary works ($400,000 fine, reparation and costs) charged under the general duty, not plant certification.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Principal contractor in the same lift, $10,000 fine for a duty on engaging another party, with no plant registration element.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: The nearest plant-hire case: a skid steer delivered with inoperative safety devices, reparation $66,515.20 and no fine; one 2016 case under the 1992 Act about condition, not registration or category.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: A vehicle inspection company fined $225,000 over a pedestrian death on its own site; transport industry and a traffic-management failure, not an inspection certificate.
• Hesketh Henry: An average of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence across all sectors and causes, with no plant split.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts 1,039 improvement and 254 prohibition notices in one quarter with no dollar value and no plant category.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Gives construction's share of harm and deaths and names vehicles and mobile machinery as a focus, but no cost figure and no registration or inspection data.
• Marsh New Zealand for NZ Transport Agency: Shows NZTA's insurance covers plant not required to be registered for road use and hired plant, with a $500,000 deductible; a policy term, not the cost of an unregistered or uninspected machine.

non_compliance/plant_compliance_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. NZD fine per prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 for asbestos offences (survey, notification, licensed removal, demolition of contaminated buildings); median of nine; mean $54,247.

Range NZ$1,100 to NZ$318,750 (reported min max)

Sample. WorkSafe's court summary register (608 entries when read) searched on "asbestos": 24 entries. Left out: 7 decided under the 1992 Act (fines up to $45,000), 2 withdrawn, Dong SH Auckland ($255,000) and its appeal, Quick Earth Moving ($150,000) and Essential Homes ($30,000) because the asbestos finding was secondary to a wall collapse or a prohibition-notice breach, and Bays Boating ($108,000, retail) and McManus Hotel ($50,000, hospitality) because the register records a non-construction industry. The register was also searched on "traffic management" (17 construction entries); of those read, only Higgins Contractors ($270,000, a three-fatality roadside case) was described by its facts as a traffic-management failure, so no set could be formed. Review re-derived the 24 results on 2026-11-02: 9 in the set, 3 left out as above (Dong, Quick Earth, Essential Homes), Dong's appeal, 2 non-construction, 7 under the 1992 Act and 2 withdrawn 2013 entries; every fine in the set matches its entry.

What it is not. Graded low on review. The median is not stable. It is the middle of nine prosecutions chosen by this research from one regulator's register under the rule in sample_note, and a defensible change to the rule moves it. Adding Dong SH Auckland ($255,000, one of its three charges is worker exposure to asbestos) gives a median of $19,687.50 over ten; adding Dong and Quick Earth Moving ($150,000) gives $23,375 over eleven; adding those two and Essential Homes ($30,000) gives $26,687.50 over twelve; dropping Topham gives $19,687.50 over eight. The nine are eight jobs, since Inspired Enterprises and Gannaway are one flooring job (21 June 2021), and Topham is a farmer demolishing a chicken shed, which the register records as building and construction. Each fine is a sentence on the whole charge sheet after the court's discounts, so it prices a prosecution, not the cost of a missing register, and only prosecuted breaches appear. Defendants are individuals and companies; the offences range from no asbestos survey to demolishing two contaminated buildings. Amounts are nominal across 2017 to 2023. The cause also covers permits to work, traffic management plans and environmental conditions, and this figure speaks to none of those; none of the nine entries is charged only with a missing asbestos register or management plan.

Our arithmetic. Fines as the WorkSafe register states them, sorted: $1,100 (Gannaway 2023); $3,000 (Knight 2018); $10,000 (Topham 2017); $15,000 (Sibley 2020); $16,000 (Ecologically Sound Demolition 2020); $23,375 (Inspired Enterprises 2023, after appeal); $35,000 (Robertson 2018); $66,000 (Wilson Building Timaru 2023); $318,750 (Crafar Crouch Construction 2018). The median is the fifth value, $16,000. Sum $488,225, mean $54,247 (488,225 / 9). price_year 2020 is the middle decision year; the amounts are nominal.

Where it came from

• WorkSafe New Zealand (2025), WorkSafe court summaries (prosecutions register): asbestos prosecutions in building and construction
  nine register entries listed in the source: topham-holding-limited, richard-john-knight, john-carstairs-robertson, crafar-crouch-construction-limited-b, glenn-warwick-sibley, ecologically-sound-demolition-limited, lawrence-gannaway, inspired-enterprises-limited, wilson-building-timaru-limited · source record

Considered and set aside

• Te Uru Kahika Regional and Unitary Councils Aotearoa: Resource Management Act fines of $3,108,157 across 71 convicted defendants in 2024/25 cover every sector with no construction or earthworks split, so they do not measure an environmental-conditions breach on a construction job.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts of notices and prosecutions with no dollar value by cause.
• Hesketh Henry: An all-sector average of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence from 2018, not tied to a site requirement.

non_compliance/site_asbestos_prosecution_fine_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 0.25% of contract sum, insured (0.15%) plus uninsured (0.1%) accident cost.

Sample. A questionnaire survey of Singapore building contractors, 2011. Read from the paper's own abstract; the sample size is not stated there.

What it is not. Singapore building work, not Australian civil, and contractors' own survey estimates rather than cost records. The full paper has not been read, so the sample size is unconfirmed. A weak Indian study found about 0.48% accident loss; the often-quoted '7.9% to 15%' comes from 1990s US data that could not be verified and is excluded.

Where it came from

• Teo & Feng (2011), Costs of Construction Accidents to Singapore Contractors
  abstract, as reproduced on the co-author's institutional research portal: https://researchers.westernsydney.edu.au/en/publications/costs-of-construction-accidents-to-singapore-contractors (the publisher page and full text returned 403) · source record

History

• 2026-09-25 Previously read only as a search snippet (secondary, unverified). Now read from the paper's own abstract, which confirms the 0.25% and adds the insured and uninsured split. A survey of contractors' own estimates grades moderate under METHOD.md Section 4. The title and industry (building, F41) are corrected from the abstract.
• 2026-11-02 subtype 'whs' dropped: it is not one of non_compliance's causes, so the figure covers the disease as a whole (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

non_compliance/noncompliance_accident_cost_ratio · SG · F41 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 46.5% of all input costs for the construction industry: outsourced services such as labour hire, design and engineering consultants and equipment rental.

Sample. Infrastructure Australia reports the ABS 'intermediate services inputs' measure for the construction industry as a whole (the ABS input-output tables), not for civil work alone. The report does not give the year or the table.

What it is not. Context only: how large bought-in services are in construction's cost, not a subcontract price rise or a loss. Read in Infrastructure Australia's report, not in the ABS table it draws on, and for all construction including housing. It includes labour hire and equipment rental, so it overlaps the labour and equipment shares in other context figures.

Where it came from

• Infrastructure Australia (2024), 2024 Infrastructure Market Capacity Report
  p.60 (key points: intermediate services input 46.5% of input costs); p.7 (almost 47 cents in every dollar, up from 40 cents in 1995-96) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Heavy and civil engineering purchases of goods and materials were 30.7% of total expenses in 2024-25 (37,773 of 123,216); the cube has no separate subcontract line, so it cannot give the outsourced share for civil work.

context/au_construction_outsourced_services_share · AU · F, F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 21.3% of the industry's total expenses: total labour costs of its own employees.

Sample. ABS annual industry accounts for ANZSIC subdivision 31 Heavy and civil engineering construction, which includes road and bridge construction and other heavy and civil work. Employment 165,900 at June 2025.

What it is not. Context only: a share of an industry's books, not of a contract and not a loss. It counts only the industry's own employees: labour bought from subcontractors or labour hire firms is not in labour costs, so the share probably understates the cost that hours drive on a job. It says nothing about hours over need.

Our arithmetic. Total labour costs A$26,308m divided by total expenses A$123,216m, both for 31 Heavy and civil engineering construction in 2024-25 (Data1 sheet, 30 June 2025 row) = 0.2135. Against total income of A$132,471m it is 0.1986.

Where it came from

• Australian Bureau of Statistics (2025), Australian Industry, 2024-25: Division E Construction, subdivision 31 Heavy and civil engineering construction
  Data1 sheet, row for 30 June 2025, the 31 Heavy and civil engineering construction columns: Total labour costs, Total expenses, Total income, Purchases of goods and materials · source record

Considered and set aside

• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Filed as its own context figure; a survey of road works that counts labour at 31.79% of road construction cost, higher than this share; the two are not the same base (road works against the whole industry's books).

context/au_heavy_civil_labour_cost_share · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 27.4% of the total cost of road construction work: equipment hire and depreciation 21.69% plus fuel 5.76%.

Sample. Survey of road works by the federal transport research bureau, 2013. For private sector contractors alone (36 respondents) equipment and fuel are 27.60% of construction cost (hire and depreciation 21.53%, fuel 6.07%). State and territory road authorities report 27.70% and local governments 26.97%.

What it is not. Context only: how large plant and fuel are in the cost of road construction, 2013 mix, for roads only. It is not an overrun, an hours-over-allowance figure or a measure of standby, and not a share of contract value. Fuel alone is 5.76% of road construction cost, but only 0.79% in the state road authorities' own column and 8.05% in local governments' (Table B2), so it varies with who does the work.

Where it came from

• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) (2013), BITRE Road Construction and Maintenance Price Index and Sub-Indexes: 2013 update (Information Sheet 49)
  Appendix B, Table B2, 'All equipment', 'Hire/ depreciation' and 'Fuel', road expenditure weighted column (p.23) · source record
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) (2016), Modelled Road Construction and Maintenance Price Index (Information Sheet 83)
  p.1 (combined construction and maintenance mix: equipment 23.2% plus fuel 5.8%) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Australian Taxation Office: A tax credit in cents per litre (52.6 for off-road diesel in early 2026, 20.6 from April 2026). It is a rate on fuel bought, not a share of cost, and the schema has no per-litre unit.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics: The output price of road and bridge construction rose 6.0% over the year to September 2026, with a 4.5% jump in the June 2026 quarter. A price movement, not plant or fuel as a share of contract cost.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Reports diesel and labour as the main contributors to the 2013-14 rise in index points; no cost share beyond the 2013 mix.

context/au_road_construction_equipment_fuel_share · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 31.8% of the total cost of road construction work: site-based labour 24.19% plus office-based labour 7.60%.

Sample. Survey of road works by the federal transport research bureau, 2013. Combined construction and maintenance mix is labour 33.94% (Table B1); maintenance alone 36.2% (Figure 4). The private contractors' column, the most relevant to a contractor, shows 32.13% for road construction and maintenance together.

What it is not. Context only: how large labour is in the cost of road works, not a measure of overstaffing, lost hours or productivity, and not an overrun or a loss. Shares are from 2013 and for roads (construction and maintenance), not all civil work. Labour bought inside materials or subcontract prices is counted there, not here. No Australian measure of hours over budget was found.

Where it came from

• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) (2013), BITRE Road Construction and Maintenance Price Index and Sub-Indexes: 2013 update (Information Sheet 49)
  Appendix B, Table B2, 'All labour', road expenditure weighted column (p.23) · source record
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) (2016), Modelled Road Construction and Maintenance Price Index (Information Sheet 83)
  p.1 (combined construction and maintenance mix: labour 26.7% plus 7.3%) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Infrastructure Australia: States, with no source or method, that labour is roughly two-thirds of costs in land-transport infrastructure construction (p.7). That is double the survey share, and with no basis given it is not used as a figure. Its p.60 says labour productivity indicators (absenteeism, turnover) are the least used by industry and construction multifactor productivity growth was -0.8; neither is a money measure.
• Infrastructure Australia: Says no consistent project-level data on subcontracting, self-performance or rework exists and that indirect labour cost metrics would have to be collected (p.61); no hours-against-budget figure.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Gives labour cost against expense for the industry; filed as its own context figure, au_heavy_civil_labour_cost_share.
• Ryan & Duffield: Lists poor productivity among factors the literature gives for megaproject failure; it gives no figure for it.

context/au_road_construction_labour_share · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 40.8% of the total cost of road construction work: bituminous materials 12.23%, cement and concrete 4.46%, quarry products 16.16% and reinforcing steel 7.92%.

Sample. Survey of road works by the federal transport research bureau, 2013. Combined construction and maintenance mix: materials 37.06%. Private sector contractors alone: materials 41.01% of road construction and maintenance cost. Subcontract prices are not a separate line in this mix.

What it is not. Context only: how large materials are in the cost of road construction, not the loss from a price rise: no price movement is applied to it. Roads only, 2013 mix. It is not a share of contract value and says nothing about how much of a job is on a fixed price.

Where it came from

• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) (2013), BITRE Road Construction and Maintenance Price Index and Sub-Indexes: 2013 update (Information Sheet 49)
  Appendix B, Table B2, 'All materials', road expenditure weighted column (p.23) · source record
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) (2016), Modelled Road Construction and Maintenance Price Index (Information Sheet 83)
  p.1 (combined construction and maintenance mix: bituminous 13.7%, cement 4.1%, quarry 13.4%, steel 5.8%) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Output price of road and bridge construction up 6.0% in the year to September 2026 (index 146.6 to 155.4). A rate of change in what clients pay, not the exposure of a fixed price contract.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Same ABS index rose 1.7% in the year to September 2019 against a ten-year average of 2.4%. A price rate, five years stale.
• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Input price index rose 0.49 index points in 2013-14, led by labour and fuel. Index points, not a share of a contract.
• Infrastructure Australia: Industry sentiment puts non-labour input price escalation at about 10-20% over twelve months (p.7). A perception, stated as a range, with no contract exposure attached.
• Infrastructure Australia: 68% of surveyed organisations saw non-labour input costs rise in the last year (p.37). A frequency of perception, not a cost.

context/au_road_construction_materials_share · AU · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. Mean margin excluding overheads, of contract value.

Range 6% to 9.89% (across studies)

Sample. 67 projects from one Australian contractor (9.89%); 8 Australian transport projects (almost 9%); six years of one contractor's ledgers (6% to 9%).

What it is not. Two of the three sources are one contractor's data each, and all three are the same research group. The docs page rounds this to 9%.

Where it came from

• Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu (2017), Cost Performance of Public Infrastructure Projects: The Nemesis and Nirvana of Change-Orders · free copy
  accepted manuscript, p.25 · source record
• Love & Ika (2021), The 'context' of transport project cost performance: Insights from contract award to final construction costs
  abstract, via IDEAS/RePEc (the full text returned 403) · source record
• Love, Ika, Ahiaga-Dagbui, Locatelli & Sing (2019), Make-or-break during production: shedding light on change-orders, rework and contractors margin in construction
  abstract (margins of 6% to 9%) · source record

context/planned_gross_margin · AU · F41, F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 1.98% of contract value, head office overhead.

Range 0.99% to 1.98% (scenario)

Sample. 30 senior Australian estimators, mostly building work.

What it is not. Our multiplication of two figures, one of them a UK 2002 number cited second-hand. Use your own rate if you have it.

Our arithmetic. Head office is 9.9% of preliminaries (table 4); preliminaries are 10% to 20% of the contract sum (introduction, citing Chan & Pasquire 2002). 9.9% x 10% = 0.99%; 9.9% x 20% = 1.98%.

Where it came from

• O'Leary & Vaz-Serra (2025), Challenges in pricing preliminaries costs for contractors: An Australian case study
  table 4; introduction · source record

context/head_office_overhead · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 1.7% of the total inputs of the heavy and civil construction industry: direct purchases of diesel.

Sample. Statistics New Zealand's 2020 input-output tables for the heavy and civil construction industry, as tabulated by Te Waihanga. Diesel is one of five materials the source names as most important by value.

What it is not. Context only: how large diesel is in the industry's cost structure, not a fuel overrun or a loss: the source does not compare fuel used with fuel priced. Direct purchases only; the source notes services inputs such as aggregate delivery also burn diesel, so the exposure is larger than 1.7% but the paper does not say by how much. One year, whole industry, not a single contract.

Where it came from

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga (2023), Why do construction input costs change? The role of global and local factors · free copy
  Table 2, p.11 · source record

Considered and set aside

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Estimates that a 1% rise in world commodity prices lifts New Zealand diesel prices by about 0.6% (p.17); it gives no diesel share of cost and no fuel use against estimate.

context/nz_civil_inputs_diesel_share · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 10.1% of the total inputs of the heavy and civil construction industry: direct equipment inputs (consumption of capital 3.8%, maintenance of equipment 2.1%, equipment hire 1.7%, all other equipment 2.5%).

Sample. Statistics New Zealand's 2020 input-output tables for the heavy and civil construction industry, as tabulated by Te Waihanga. Diesel, 1.7% of the same total, is recorded as its own finding. The denominator is the industry's total inputs including taxes, subsidies and margins (8.0%).

What it is not. Context only: how large equipment is in the industry's cost structure, not a share lost or overspent: the source does not measure plant hours against what was priced. A whole-industry cost structure for one year, not a contract's. Includes consumption of capital (depreciation), which a hire-rate or utilisation overrun would not move. Diesel burned by subcontractors sits in the services inputs, not here.

Where it came from

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga (2023), Why do construction input costs change? The role of global and local factors · free copy
  Table 2, p.11, and section 1.4, p.10 · source record

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What it is. 17.6% of the total inputs of the heavy and civil construction industry: direct material inputs (structural metal 3.7%, sand, gravel, clay, stone and bitumen 3.4%, concrete and other mineral products 2.5%, diesel 1.7%, plaster, lime and paperboard 1.6%, wood 0.6%, other 4.0%).

Sample. Statistics New Zealand's 2020 input-output tables for the heavy and civil construction industry, as tabulated by Te Waihanga. The same paper reports mean quarterly material price change of 1.18% over 2010 to 2022 (Figure 1, nominal), and heavy and civil output prices rising 7.8% a year from 2020 to the March 2023 quarter against 2.4% a year over 2009 to 2019 (Table 1): price changes the schema cannot hold as a cost.

What it is not. Context only: how large this input is in the industry's cost structure, not a loss, an overrun or a price rise. It does not measure materials prices rising on a fixed price: the source does not say how many contracts were fixed-price or carried fluctuation clauses. Includes diesel (1.7%), which is also its own context figure. Whole industry, one year, not a contract's cost.

Where it came from

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga (2023), Why do construction input costs change? The role of global and local factors · free copy
  Table 2, p.11, and section 1.4, p.10 · source record

Considered and set aside

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga: Says structural steel, aggregates, concrete and cement, diesel and timber are about three quarters of material inputs, and that material prices follow world prices; it gives no share of a contract lost to a price rise.

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What it is. 41.8% of the total inputs of the heavy and civil construction industry: intermediate service inputs (civil engineering services 16.8%, other installation work 13.5%, all other services 11.4%).

Sample. Statistics New Zealand's 2020 input-output tables for the heavy and civil construction industry, as tabulated by Te Waihanga. The paper describes these services as mostly labour, with some material content, such as diesel used to deliver aggregates.

What it is not. Context only: how large bought-in services are in the industry's cost structure, not a loss, an overrun or a price rise. The category is purchased services, which includes subcontracted installation and engineering work but also professional and other services, and the source does not split subcontracts out. Whole industry, one year.

Where it came from

• New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga (2023), Why do construction input costs change? The role of global and local factors · free copy
  Table 2, p.11, and section 1.4, p.10 · source record

context/nz_civil_inputs_services_share · NZ · F42 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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