From the CCF President: 35m reasons to get infrastructure planning right

Most Australians have become used to a standard of living that gives them clean drinking water when they turn on a tap, efficient removal of waste, access to the latest telecommunications and safe, fast and reliable transport corridors. We can already see major pressures in cities struggling to provide for current populations.
I have had a real insight into this as the ACT chairman of the Regional Development Australia Committee. The ACT government is projecting that an additional 46,350 people will be attracted to the ACT and surrounding shires by the year 2031, meaning an additional 25,200 dwellings and 27,800 new jobs will be required.
How we manage these issues is going to be critical for our sector in particular: it is civil contractors who will be engaged to build this infrastructure. But unless we tackle some of our serious issues now, neither industry nor governments who want this work done, will be able to deliver.
Three key areas
There are three key areas I see us focusing on in the current year.
Firstly, we need to be working with all parties, governments and government agencies, to ensure that they have well planned capital works and maintenance programs. Indeed, whilst we have seen a real emphasis on new developments, which is very welcome, we also need to focus on the maintenance of existing infrastructure. These programs need to support all sectors of our industry.
Secondly, we need to cut red tape. It adds layers of regulation for no benefit, either to the client or the end user. The CCF has been particularly critical of what we see as over engineering, and different standards of construction, especially at local government level.
As we move to a low carbon future, under the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (or CPRS), the importance of this issue will be highlighted. Real consideration needs to be given to balancing low carbon emissions against what main roads departments and engineers have seen in the past as the standard method of construction or standard use of materials.
Finally, we have to keep training and retraining our workforce, and develop a training culture in all sectors of our industry. By that I mean we have to see training our staff, not as some add on or nice to do thing, but as core and critical to the way we do business. Recent employment data during our economic downturn tells an interesting story on this account. It has not seen the wholesale shedding of jobs, which has been a characteristic of earlier recessions, but rather a cut in hours as employers seek to hold onto the staff they have.
Holding on to staff
In our industry this is particularly important: it was only very recently that we were experiencing severe skills shortages. From my discussions with CCF members, it’s clear that contractors reflected this trend by trying to hold onto staff now, knowing how difficult it was to attract skilled employees in the very recent past.
The industry has come a long way in skills training in the last few years thanks to the hard work of a number of our members.
However, Civil Skills do not enjoy the same support as many traditional trades. For example, our traineeships do not attract a number of the incentives available to other industries. We do not figure on the National Skills Needs List, and recently we missed out on the Apprenticeship Kick Start program, announced by the Deputy Prime Minister. That program provides additional support for the traditional trades by cash payments to employers
The reasons for this are both historical and technical. Historical because formal training and recognition has only recently become a key feature of the industry, and technical due to the way in which data is collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and the so called ANZSCO system.
Imprecise job descriptors
There are also issues in the way in which our industry describes its occupations. For example it uses terms such as “labourer” rather than “plant operator” or “bridge constructor.” This is reflected in the statistics which the ABS gathers in the census and means that decision makers do not have an accurate view of the true size and depth of our industry.
With governments ear marking infrastructure development, as a key plank in keeping the economy strong, we need support to attract people to civil trades. If we don’t train the next generation of grader drivers or plant operators, then governments simply will be unable to deliver, on their infrastructure commitments.
Redressing this imbalance, is something we are working on very actively, including some targeted surveying of our members. Getting real and accurate data is a key to making our case.
It’s going to be a challenging year, an election year, a year in which we hope that the Australian economy truly returns to full strength. Finally in passing, can I thank my predecessor Phillip Marsh for his hard work and commitment and for providing a great platform to build on?
I also encourage you as CCF members, to get involved: we can only work at our best when we know what is impacting on your ability to get the work done, and how we can help. As your new president I welcome your feedback.