Queensland Report - August 2010

dvocacy a strong selling point for CCF members
The Civil Contractors Federation Queensland branch deals with many important aspects that assist our industry to advance. In this article I would like to spend some time discussing the growing importance of the advocacy role to the CCF brand.
As Australia sees off the side-effects of the Global Financial Crisis the need for a voice for the civil construction industry has never been greater. Every day we see decisions made by government that affect every aspect of the civil construction industry. Part of the role of the CCF is to keep abreast of changes to regulation and inform government of the potential consequences of these changes.
A recent survey of CCF members found that 74% of respondents think that representation and advocacy were an important benefit of membership of the organisation. This extremely high response rate, suggests that there is an expectation amongst our membership, that when industry needs their voice heard the CCF has the capacity to and will provide that voice.
The important representative role that CCF plays, means that members can go about their day to day business and be confident that somebody is representing their views to the decision makers. The advocacy role of the CCF is all about starting a dialogue with these decision makers.
A recent example was the participation in our state conference by the Director General of the Department of Transport and Main Roads. The purpose of Dave speaking at our conference was two-fold: firstly to provide an overview of the direction that infrastructure spending is heading and secondly to allow members to raise issues that may be helpful to the department.
However, the dialogue between CCF and government doesn’t just happen at state conferences; it is a continuing process of interaction. The CCF has a constant interaction with government on a number of levels including:

• Industry forums with guest speakers;
• Meetings with departmental officials and politicians;
• Representative and advisory bodies; and
• Position papers and submissions.

The CCF has regular planned meetings with TMR to have constructive consideration of the issues that affect both contractors and the department.
A recent industry forum was directed towards the subject of industry concerns about changes to the Brisbane City Council (BCC) procurement processes. Cr Adrian Schrinner, chairman of the BCC Finance and Administration Committee, attended the forum specifically to listen to the views of contractors on changes to the BCC procurement policy.
The CCF is so serious about providing a voice for civil contractors to government, we have employed a full time staff member to work specifically on advocacy. The new member of the CCF team responsible for advocacy is research and policy manager, Michael Duff. Michael has a broad policy background having worked in the three tiers of local, state and federal government. 
Since taking on the role, Michael has worked on a range of policy issues that have come from the concerns of our membership. The scope of policy he has covered since he joined the organisation in March has been broad and varied. 
In the area of workplace health and safety, the CCF has been faced with two major issues: changes to the state workers compensation scheme and initial discussions on the new national model for safety regulations and codes of practice. The CCF, QMCA and Traffic Management Association Queensland, recently presented a joint submission to government on the review of Queensland’s Workers Compensation Scheme.
The CCF is an active stakeholder in reviewing any policy changes regarding education and training. It participates in advisory committees that are reviewing the operations of the 10% training policy.
This year we have been approached by members seeking information about where a Building Services Authority (BSA) license is required to carry out civil construction work. This is an area that our policy committee is working on to provide suggestions to government about a way forward.
Environmental regulation is a growing part of the role of a civil contractor and the CCF has been keen to get practical and sustainable outcomes from our input into environmental policy. One of the emerging issues that we are working on, is the requirement of sub-contractors to report their energy use on major construction projects, under the National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Scheme (NGERS).
The biggest advocacy issue the Queensland CCF branch has faced this year has been the decreasing overall expenditure on infrastructure by the private and public sector. This has particularly led to members questioning the procurement policies of both state and local government. We have been working to ensure councils and contractors are talking to each other about the issues they face.
The feedback is saying that members believe that advocacy is an important benefit in being part of the CCF. Your CCF has heard the message loud and clear and we will continue to build on these services provided to you as members, so that the CCF can be the primary advocate for civil contracting matters in Queensland.