Welcome to the Decade of the Builder.
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This boom period of new home and infrastructure construction is going to go down in the annals of Australian history as the moment in time that building became the new driver of the economy, following on from sheep, tourism and mining, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet announced.
"If you look back in the future at this time, it will be seen as the Decade of the Builder," Mr Perrottet said at the rooftop topping-out ceremony marking another of Sydney's new apartment buildings.
"It's construction that's creating so many jobs today and not just for builders, but chippies, electricians and all the trades who work on a project like this and on all the infrastructure projects that are currently underway in NSW. And then when they're finished, the after-effects continue on to create more jobs in those areas that have been opened up."
He was speaking at the traditional hoisting up of a tree to the top of the tallest building on a site, this time an eight-level block that's one of the six buildings under construction to make up developer Mirvac's The Finery complex, providing 223 apartments and terrace homes in Waterloo.
On the former site of the HPM Legrand factory, the buildings will be clustered around a lushly landscaped 1040-square-metre central courtyard with 1200 square metres of boutique retail and food outlets, and also have a rooftop terrace with a pool.
But with last year chalking up a new record of 72,000 building approvals in the state, the delivery of such projects will continue creating employment into the foreseeable future, Mr Perrottet predicted.
"Forty-eight per cent of Australia's growth is from NSW and an amazing nine per cent of jobs here have been created by construction," he said. "The building has also been very diverse which assists us in continuing to grow strongly and avoid downturns such as happened with the mining industry."
A major factor in the newly-minted Decade of the Builder has been a new period of collaboration between government and private industry, said Mirvac CEO and managing director Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz.
"We like to work with government at all levels and it's great to see how government and the private sector are working so closely together to deliver outcomes, rather than with the old adversarial approach. This way, everyone wins.
"We're building homes where people want to live, close to the city and important infrastructure, and we are creating jobs, not just on site, but all the way down the supply chain. That's a benefit that has played a major role in making the NSW economy the strongest in the country."
Across NSW, current Mirvac projects from Green Square to Redfern, Sydney Olympic Park to St Leonards, Schofields to Gledswood Hills, have created hundreds of jobs for both experienced tradespeople and apprentices directly, she said, and thousands more for subcontractors, manufacturers, the professional service industry and suppliers.
Mirvac head of residential Stuart Penklis said such construction was helping create fresh excitement in new areas of Sydney. "This is a transformation of this area into a very welcoming and sophisticated village with beautiful architecture and landscaping, new roads and new laneways, which speaks to the history and heritage of the site," he said.
"The influx of more people is having a flow-on effect, creating more retail and employment opportunity so that it is fast becoming a destination in its own right."
The completion of The Finery is expected mid-2018.
