It has been now a little over 7 months since I was elected to the role of President of the QMCA by my peers in industry. Accordingly, I think it is a good time to reflect on what the Association has achieved before we push on towards the end of 2018 and wrap the year in flying colours. 
Before I go any further, I want to thank the QMCA Board for their trust, passion and commitment to making our Association an altogether more engaging enterprise and taking the courageous step of appointing a new CEO in Jon Davies back in March. Jon has been at the forefront of many of our engagement strategies including a first “Front Page” in the Australian newspaper !
My election to President was founded on a platform of “Collaboration” as a key theme that I felt was critical to the advancement of our industry; I am both pleased and relieved to see it become centre stage for progressing through the challenges we now face.
Let me explain….
First I always felt there was something of a “social contract” between the QMCA Member Organisations and their Clients. If we were to petition for better forms of procurement and contract we had to show more endeavour on societal objectives. In this regard, we have made excellent progress here through the following initiatives:-
- QMCA’s role as a Foundation Sponsor at Construction’s Big Night Out. This was an industry first and an event that sold out weeks ahead of occurrence. During the night I reflected with a sense of great pride that over 500 people connected to our industry, gathered together for no other reason than to support a worthwhile local charity in Smart Pups. There was something terribly disarming in raising money for kids and in the end we topped our expectations by raising over $80,000. Talk about “collaboration”!
- QMCA’s role as a Patron for Constructionarium Australia. The significance of this was made more apparent only last week after TMR agreed to co-sponsor a third build. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Neil Scales OBE and the new Deputy Director General, Amanda Yeates (congrats Amanda on a well deserved promotion). This will give one of our member companies and their young engineers a first hand experience on the benefit of collaboration as we construct a replica of a Timber Bridge. From personal experience this is an occasion where we as industry leaders genuinely “give back” to the next generation, who I have no doubt will be smarter and more collaborative in nature than we are.
- QMCA’s launch of the Ian Harrington Award which celebrates the character of our first President, Ian Harrington, who is unfortunately no longer with us. It seems fitting as agencies across Australia begin to move away from adversarial forms of contract that we reward those that have seen the light and reap the productive benefits of collaboration over conflict. Get ready for a great Friday afternoon in October and QMCA’s biggest event of the year!
So what next?
For our Members, the QMCA is becoming a more respected and trusted advocate for fairer procurement processes and contract terms. We are now better articulating the benefits to our Clients of the need to adequately fund major competitive processes using historic bid costs amalgamated from our own previous experiences ; this shift away from mere ‘moral’ petitioning to ‘economic’ benefits will hopefully address one of the major wasted cost centres our industry has somehow become comfortable with.
We are also establishing sub-committees to target areas for specific industry advancement.
Although our members have a world class reputation in safety performance, this is never a aspect that we can never feel is done and dusted. Soon we will rekindle our industry Safety Working Group and I am excited about how this can span Membership from Clients as well as Major Contractors and our Associates.
Cognisant that the industry is ripe for technological disruption, we will also be exploring initiatives that should fuel a step change in productivity for our members. Interestingly, the future of work in Civil Construction will present major challenges to our traditional contractual arrangements with a deference towards collaboration to manage risk (rather than assign risk). Buckle your seat Dorothy because Kansas is going bye bye !
So how can you get involved?
Well…Get involved.
As an organisation we are only as strong as our membership. We are welcoming new members and new associates, partners and sponsors into the QMCA fold. And as we are growing it makes sense for you to grow with us too. We need to broaden our appreciation of the issues our suppliers and sub-contractors face and do more to help them ; we need better diversity in a male dominated industry for more productive and innovative outcomes and we need young talent to step up and join the movement.
I’ll end with my favourite Ted Talk but fair to say I don’t feel the lone lunatic I did back in January.
