Advocacy Highlights

With influence being the theme of this edition, I am proud to say that the team is delivering strongly on this front, ensuring Consult Australia has influence on government decision-making, as well as with other industry associations and the private sector.

This is demonstrated by our successful collaboration with 13 other industry associations calling on the Commonwealth Government to finally realise procurement reform for infrastructure projects. We were joined by the likes of the Australian Constructors Association, Ai Group, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Roads Australia and the Australian Railway Association. We all want to see a healthy construction ecosystem with every sector able to prosper and ultimately deliver world-leading projects for Australia. In our standalone submission to the Inquiry into Procurement Practices for Government-Funded Infrastructure we stressed how current capacity issues in our sector and the devastating impacts of the current insurance market make action vital. Our solutions include government action to de-risk the market by; government clients becoming Model Clients, civil liability reform and reforms to the Australian Consumer Law.

We suggested similar solutions in our submission to the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) when it released for consultation its paper The Role of the Private Insurance Market. We also called for the ICA to join us in our advocacy to government on these solutions.

Another clear demonstration of Consult Australia’s influence was the recent changes to the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List. Informed by our skills survey and member input, we advocated for key engineering occupations and surveying to be included to allow for priority visa processing. All the categories we suggested were added to the list, including Electrical Engineer, Civil Engineer, Geotechnical Engineer, Structural Engineer, Surveyor and Transport Engineer.

Also on skills, we recently submitted to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ targeted review of the Australian New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations suggesting emerging occupations relevant to our industry. Additionally, we advocated for prioritised review of occupation classifications relevant to our industry noting that we need the policy settings right to capture the occupations essential to the Australian economy.

We are also recognised at the highest levels of government, as part of the Procurement Consultative Roundtable, at which the Commonwealth Secretaries from key government agencies sit with a select number of industry representatives. At the last meeting I was able to raise our member concerns about capacity in the market to deliver both private and public projects. It was pleasing to have the Commonwealth Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman raise the issue of insurance for discussion. More so, I was able to support the moves by the government to professionalise procurement as I pointed out in particular current deficiencies in some government clients on understanding commercial and market pressures (including insurance).

As demonstrated in the State/Territory updates, the whole team is developing quality relationships with industry partners and government stakeholders to ensure we maintain and grow that influence.

Kristy Eulenstein

Head of Policy and Government Relations