The Pathway to Legacy Achievement in a Saturated Demand Environment

The significance of Queensland’s journey to the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games is accompanied by its obligations to fulfil its business-as-usual (BAU) responsibilities.

This unprecedented demand for BAU infrastructure delivery includes cross-sectoral demand coming from Transport, Health, Education and Energy with additional overlays associated with the Games, Social Housing and Accommodation, Justice, Defence and jurisdictional competition with NSW and Victoria. Additionally, throw into the mix unscheduled (declared) disaster recovery events and we have all the ingredients for a substantive risk to diminish Legacy achievement.

The identified path to support a realisable transition to Legacy achievement is represented in the
following themes.

Demand and supply, lack of an aggregated demand model

1. Create a whole of government and private sector response
2. Develop aggregated and integrated demand and supply models to inform critical resource deficits in people/skills, resources and funding
3. Adopt a “Challenge Mentality” that will demonstrate how the instruments of government respond to this extraordinary circumstance and may include critical assessments like:
   • • Does the immigration policy best support the inclusion and attraction of required skills to deliver the infrastructure required, including prioritisation of trades persons, engineers, planners and scientists?
     • Do the commercial frameworks and procurement mechanisms support delivery of outcomes aligned to important themes such as Legacy, project delivery excellence, competitive ROI and risk assurance outcomes?
4. Work across industries and sectors to develop a response to critical resource demand requirements
5. Understand the downstream consequence that the immigration of appropriately skilled labour will place additional pressure on the already constrained housing supply and may inadvertently direct limited scarce housing from vulnerable populations for whom it was intended
6. What tax breaks, changes to education systems or other incentivisation or levers may be activated to induce additional resources?

Productivity

1. Ensure labor reforms and productivity improvements are sustainable and not subject to the vagaries of political cycles
2. Recognise the criticality of productivity as a primary measure of achievement, and increases in efficiency as a driver of  productivity
3. Embrace relevant technologies and AI to consolidate principles and achievement of productivity improvements
4. Adopt Rodd Staples’ recommendations

Collaborative Contracting Model

1. Adopt evaluation methods that do not rely on the predominance or over representation of “Price” as a criteria for assessment
2. Let the development of a preferred approach be vested in the participating parties and not subjugated to the will of entities advocating  for pecuniary or disassociated outcomes
3. Jointly acknowledge rightful entitlement of parties to achieve a favourable ROI for the delivery of quality infrastructure that best achieves Value for Money, whole of life and Legacy outcomes
4. Incentivise innovation
5. Define the purpose and intent of preferred collaborative contracting methods and build industry-accepted models that reflect this intent.
6. Identify risks and assign responsibility and ownership to the appropriate party or parties that are best equipped to respond to the dimensions and consequences of the assigned risk
7. Maintain simplicity and the avoidance of  jargonistic language
8. Develop real and demonstrable capacity for partner entities to identify and resolve issues on a joint and collaborative basis and in the absence of “blame”
9. Socialise and adopt these models, as best practice commercial frameworks

Legacy

1. The notion of Legacy cannot simply refer to the associated benefits of delivering a project outcome in the form of built infrastructure or operational service. It must be represented in structural reform including (i) effective Approvals and (ii) Procurement processes, (iii) the adoption of a universal and robust digital framework and platform, (iv) an industrial  relations environment that is responsive and caring toward the achievement of safety and productivity.
2. Representations that the Games’ costs “will not exceed $7.2b” is premature. If this is an imposed artificial ceiling, it will be at the cost of Legacy achievement. If there is an exceedance of budget (>$7.2b), there is an implied reputational risk that another government has not managed “on time, on budget” requirements.
3. Productivity Legacy
   • Under section 53DD of the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games Arrangement Act 2021, State Government has been granted significant powers. Our encouragement is for government to use these powers to expedite the right outcomes and (to go way beyond the bypassing of red tape) to include fundamental reforms.
   • The reforms achieved and implemented in the delivery of Games’ infrastructure planning and delivery should not be set aside as at “Dissolution Day” (Refer to section 52) and should form part of the Games’ Legacy achievement and be adapted and adopted across whole of government thereafter. This includes, as a minimum:
     • Approvals
     • Procurement
     • Digital frameworks
     • Industrial harmony
     • Productivity.

Leo Hammett
Principal Advisor