'Let him get his tools': Tradies wait to find out if they'll be paid for work on troubled builder's site

Outraged tradies crashed through fences and confronted security guards to get their tools back after a troubled builder’s site stopped all work.

Tradesmen took matters into their own hands at the Subiaco site after security guards tried to stop them.

“Leave him alone hey - Just let him get his tools. F--- off! Hey hey hey!” someone at the site yelled as tensions boiled over.

Cooper and Oxley banned access to its seven job sites following financial turmoil - promising hundreds of subcontractors they'd be allocated times to collect their tools but workers say those bookings never came.

“I've got a few teams I need to support, it's more than just my family, it's 3 or 4 families,” a worker at the site said.

“If we can't get our tools we can't work, it's very simple.”

At about 11am police arrived at the scene and overruled the guards.

The gates finally opened and tradies could go in and get their tools.

Subcontractor Henry Weldon said he has been unpaid for two months and is owed $80,000.

“You could ask my wife; I've put in every hour under the sun and darkness to get business up and running to get to where we are today as well as investing every last cent,” he said.

The Commerce Minister is promising an Industry Advisory Group to shape legislation and protect payments to subcontractors on all construction projects.

Cooper and Oxley says it'll provide an update in coming days but even if it floats it seems some subcontractors are moving out for good.