Queensland Report - October 2010

New Queensland board elected
The Annual General Meeting of the Queensland Branch was held on the 15 September at the Greek Club West End.  The AGM saw the election of a new Queensland Branch board.

Gavin Turner, Boulder Wall Construction Pty Ltd has been re-elected as the Branch President.  There are three new board members this year with Peter Kendall, CMC, Marc Kuypers, Moggill Construction and Richard Nyholt, Nyholt Constructions taking on the positions of Branch Board Members.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank outgoing Board Members, Rob Douglas, John Hull and Murray Barber for their service to the CCF Queensland Board.

The full list of Queensland board members is as follows:
President: Gavin Turner; vice president: Damian Long; honorary treasurer: Anthony Burke; board members: John Clark, Paul Fogarty, Peter Kendall, Marc Kuypers, Richard Nyholt, Mark Panizza and Brian Riggall; national board member: Terry Cogill; alternate national board member: Gavin Turner.

CCF submits response on QBSA review
This branch has submitted comment on the operations of the Building Services Authority (QBSA) currently being reviewed by KPMG on behalf of the Minister for Public Works and ICT Robert Schwarten and the QBSA Board.
The CCF submission highlighted three main issues for contractors in the QBSA license and submitted three recommendations to improve the scheme including:
Issues:

• Incidental building work turns civil construction projects into building projects
• A builder’s low rise licence is impractical for a civil construction company to access
• Unlicensed Principal Contractors are unable to subcontract building work to QBSA licensed contractors

Recommendations

• The CCF believes there should be a broadening of the exemptions to QBSA licensed works to include works that are covered by a Registered Professional Engineers Queensland (RPEQ) registered engineer and are signed off by relevant government authorities.
• The CCF believes that where an RPEQ registered engineer certifies a design, this should remove any requirement for a QBSA licence.
• That a principal contractor who does not hold a QBSA licence be allowed to subcontract building work to a company which is QBSA licensed for minor building works.

Queensland Earth Awards Winners
The Queensland CCF Earth Awards were announced at the Brisbane Convention Centre on August 27 with more than 300 people in attendance. The evening was an overwhelming success with a record equalling number of nominees for all categories and a record breaking number of nominees in category two, projects worth between $1m and $5m.
A new look for the 2010 Earth Awards was designed and developed by the Queensland Branch. The objective was to maintain the historical brand whilst giving it a more modern image to reflect the outstanding works portrayed in the nominations of recent years.
The Queensland award winners are:
Category 1 – project value up to $1m
Koombooloomba Bridge Deck Replacement
Civilplus Constructions Pty Ltd
Category 2 – project value $1m to $5m
Port Douglas Boat Harbour Maintenance Dredging
Hall Contracting Pty Ltd and Department of Transport and Main Roads
Category 3 – project value $5m to $20m
Yaamba Road Pedestrian Overpass Project
York Civil Pty Ltd and Department of Transport and Main Roads
Category 4 – project value $20m to $75m
St Lawrence Creek Rail Bridge
Seymour Whyte Constructions Pty Ltd
Category 5 – project value more than $75m
Ipswich Motorway Upgrade: Darra to Wacol
Safelink Alliance (BMD Constructions Pty Ltd, Leighton Contractors Pty Ltd, Arup, AECOM (Australia) and Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads)
We congratulate every company which submitted a nomination, our finalists and also winners for the 2010 Earth Awards. The winners of each of the categories will represent Queensland at the National Awards to be held in Canberra this month.