WA construction veteran John Murray wrote the report into the security of subcontractor payments for the Turnbull government.

He recommended government introduce ‘cascading trusts’ that would force builders to pay money down the subcontractor chain as work progresses;rather than a client dumping cash into builders’ accounts,who are then left to their own devices to pay subbies.

A separate report for the WA government by barrister John Fiocci came to the same conclusion and Attorney General John Quigley publicly announced his support for cascading trusts last year. But when the bill was first introduced to Parliament in September cascading trusts were omitted.

The building industry also opposes cascading trusts,claiming they would impose too great of an administrative burden on individual projects.

The bill does include a trust scheme for about 5 per cent of payments,but Mr Murray said that was just a ‘pimple on the pumpkin’.

“One would have thought that ... there may have been a realisation by the government that only the introduction of[cascading trusts] will provide subcontractors,who carry out 85 per cent of construction work,with the necessary protection,” he said.

“I don’t know who they’re listening to but surely they should be listening to those parties who are most adversely affected.

“I’m bewildered and astonished and so disappointed it’s not happening.”

Commerce Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson told Parliament on Tuesday there was a divergence of opinion on cascading trusts and raised concerns that it would impact industry cash flow.

“We felt that that would be a bridge too far for a sector that has just come off what have been a number of years of flatness,essentially. It is a very volatile sector,” she said.

“Our bill will bring us in line with the rest of the country,and it will provide protections for subcontractors along the entire chain of the contracting process – that is,the point of the bill – and with the rapid adjudication process resolve those disputes as they occur.”