South Australia Report - October 2010

SA Budget
The recent SA Budget has seen a continuance of the strong investment by the state government in infrastructure. The record spending on infrastructure will maintain strong work levels in the civil construction industry and has been widely welcomed. This includes: $1.4bn over 4 years for rail upgrades and electrification; $840m for the South Road Superway; $445m for the Southern Expressway duplication; $12.4m for black spot funding.

Simulators
CCF SA’s new Volvo excavator, wheel loader and articulated dump truck simulators have been well received across the civil construction industry, with even the most seasoned operators pleasantly surprised with their capabilities. Designed to supplement training on actual plant, the simulators focus on basic skills and safety.
Utilising the latest Volvo plant and advanced technologies, the training program provide a wide variety of skill training for new operators in a safe environment. Simulators have low running costs and energy use and with minimal repairs and maintenance, they make a viable addition to the training of our future workforce.

CCF trainers
In what is anticipated to be ongoing initiative, trainers from a number of states united in Adelaide for a week of professional development activities and up-skilling. This included trialling the new Volvo simulators, focus groups on improvement opportunities, and training and assessing on plant at the Playford Alive, live works site. The week provided trainers with the opportunity to moderate their training and assessments techniques, tools and processes across Australia. This will ensure that equally high standards for training and assessments are delivered across Australia by Civil Train divisions.

Capability directory
The CCF SA, in partnership with the state government, has started collecting data that will form the basis of a new publication The 2011 SA Civil Construction Capability Directory. It will provide all CCF SA members with the opportunity to have their company and its capabilities published in a high profile directory.
This publication will be distributed widely to ensure that the profile of each member is understood by all potential clients, both government and private. An electronic version of the data will be maintained in the Industry Capability Network (ICN) database, which will enable members to make appropriate changes to their profile in the future.