From the CEO

Looking at Consult Australia’s successes over 2021, I am particularly proud of the work we put into the development of Australia’s 2021 Infrastructure Plan, which sets out a significant reform agenda for our industry’s productivity and to unlock innovation.

2021 has been another turbulent and challenging year, but as we come towards the end of year it’s a great time to reflect and take a moment to celebrate all we’ve achieved. As a community our most incredible achievement is the take up of the COVID-19 vaccinations across the country, which now sees us planning to reopen international borders. Unlike 2020, this year the various lockdowns across the country and site closures had a greater impact in our industry but we have navigated our way through it and our industry continues to deliver.

Looking at Consult Australia’s successes over 2021, I am particularly proud of the work we put into the development of Australia’s 2021 Infrastructure Plan, which sets out a significant reform agenda for our industry’s productivity and to unlock innovation. At the start of the year, we seconded James Robertson (our then Policy Lead) to Infrastructure Australia for 3-months and through ongoing consultation we helped inform the recommendations. The Plan adopts our Model Client policy approach to describe the way in which the public sector should conduct itself when procuring the services of our industry. The plan also acknowledges our Champions of Change programme and the work we’ve done to increase diversity and inclusion. Looking at Consult Australia’s successes over 2021, I am particularly proud of the work we put into the development of Australia’s 2021 Infrastructure Plan, which sets out a significant reform agenda for our industry’s productivity and to unlock innovation.

Through our state/territory committees and with the support of our dedicated team of professionals we are working with government agencies across the country to see these reforms come to life, not just for the benefit for the infrastructure sector, but to see a substantial improvement in the way risk and procurement is managed across the industry.

I am also extremely proud of what we’ve achieved to support mental health. As you’ll read in this edition of Consulting Matters, we’ve continued to develop our Mental Health Knowledge Hub for members. Also, we’ve again run our campaign asking public sector agencies across the country to avoid releasing tenders with deadlines over the Christmas holiday period. This year we asked other industry groups to join us, and I’m pleased to say that we were joined by Engineers Australia, the Australian Constructors Association, Roads Australia, and the Australasian Rail Association.

In this edition of Consulting Matters, Puneet Sachdev from Enzen shares 14-steps of a human-centered employee experience and importantly how to measure success, through which you can celebrate your achievements as a team. Professor Danny Samson provides his insights on how to sustain business success, so that you can keep celebrating those wins!

Talking of wins, I’d like to congratulate our inaugural Hall of Fame recipient, Arup for winning our coveted Large Firm of the Year Award for 3-consecutive years. Consecutive wins of this nature are outstanding and Consult Australia’s Hall of Fame is a fitting reward for such excellence. We are very excited to see the wide range of entries coming in for our 2022 Awards programme, and we’ll be announcing the winners at our very special OneConsult 2022 event in Sydney on 30-31 March 2022.

We will also be celebrating 70 years of Consult Australia, with conference and exhibition. Tickets are available now through our website.

I look forward to seeing you at OneConsult in March 2022 and in the meantime wish you a happy and healthy end of year celebration. n

Nicola Grayson

CEO