The Australian Owned Contractors (AOC) group is targeting Queensland politicians in a campaign to fight millions of dollars from public infrastructure projects flowing to foreign-owned construction companies.

The seats of Townsville and Mundingburra are firmly in their sights as the six-week campaign will focus the blowtorch on marginal seats ahead of the State election.

AOC chief executive officer Brent Crockford and director Scott Power said the campaign deliberately pulled no punches, including election-style advertising and an online petition to force action.

“Voters in marginal seats will be mobilised and politicians pressured to make action on this issue part of their election platform,” Mr Crockford said.

“All of Australia’s major construction companies are now foreign owned and they dominate across our biggest public infrastructure projects.

“In fact, 95 cents in every dollar spent by Governments on these major projects across the country now goes to foreign owned companies.

“The ‘Let Us Build Queensland’ campaign seeks to draw a line in the sand ahead of the State election, and to illustrate to Queenslanders who really reap the benefits of our biggest projects – and it’s not Australian companies.”

The AOC represents 18 Australian-owned contracting companies.

Mr Power said that most Queenslanders were unaware of just how high the cards were stacked against local construction and engineering firms when it came to bidding for and winning major work.

“Our companies regularly take on and successfully deliver projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but we are locked out and left fighting for sub-contracting scraps when it comes to leading the biggest projects,” Mr Power said.

“Capability is rarely a factor in these situations – it comes down to ability to take on sole financial risk when procurement is bundled together in mega-projects by government agencies.

“It’s a one-size-fits-all mentality to tendering which relegates Australian companies to second class subcontractor status while foreign owned multi-nationals lead the work on our biggest national projects.”

• The ‘Let Us Build Queensland’ petition is available via the campaign webpage: www.letusbuild.com.au