The foundation of what we now know as the Civil Contractors Federation began being laid in 1990 when, then Vice-President Michael Chamberlain and Committee member Peter Shadforth, were left holding the reins of the Australian Earthmovers and Road Contractors Federation (AERCF) in Queensland.
However it took several years, 3-Presidents and a small group of dedicated contractors to truly bring the Federation to life.
The following is a brief insight into what took place and the people behind that evolution.
The AERCF in Queensland was predominately an organization of owner operators involved in plant hire, earthwork operations and trucking, and despite the fact that it had served its industry well to that point, times were changing and revitalization was needed to move forward.
Michael Chamberlain was well aware of this and he decided to join the AERCF committee as a way to exercise his desires to broaden the focus of the organization and provide a voice to medium sized contractors who, he felt up to that point, had very little representation.
The change Chamberlain sought began when the majority of members quit the Federation over the issue of increased membership fees. So with just himself and Shadforth in Queensland, Chamberlain began the daunting task of rebuilding the organization.
At the time Industrial Relations was a hot political issue in Queensland with the possibility of national awards being implemented by the federal government of the day. As Chamberlain recalls “the Government appeared determined to nationalize all the industry awards covering civil contractors, which we felt would have been a major setback for the small and medium contractors in Queensland”.
It was then that AERCF National Director Doug Huett, with a solid background as an industrial relations advocate, stepped in to help with the membership drive as many contractors were frustrated over the industrial relations landscape that was unfolding.
At the state level this initial membership drive was supported by Ms Mulchay, who became the first Executive Director of the AERCF in Queensland. In those days it was a part-time position with an office she ran out of her home in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum.
Over the 2-years from 1990-1992 Michael Chamberlain gave so much of himself to forming the new federation that his own civil engineering business began to suffer. But it was thanks to his vision and dedication that the Civil Contractors Federation is what it is today.
When Chamberlain passed the Presidency torch to Daryl Traynor in 1992 there was already a solid foundation in place with a small group of dedicated contractors onboard as members. But there were some significant policy issues to address with the newly elected State Labor Government.
Traynor was quick to make the Executive Director’s role a full-time position with the appointment of Graham Dodd to the role. Traynor attributes this as one of his greatest contributions during his term.
According to Traynor, “Graham Dodd had a broad background of experience with organizations such as AMOCO and BP and that provided the AERCF with the experience it needed to become a player in broader policy issues”.
This came in handy as the new Labor Government started rolling out a series of new rules and regulations that significantly impacted the industry, the most dramatic of which was the Quality Assurance legislation.
According to Traynor, Quality Assurance became a mandatory requirement for tendering all government work and was expensive to acquire, making it a challenging proposition for smaller contractors.
Also under Traynor’s leadership the AERCF began to branch out from its Industrial Relations heritage and started providing the industry with a voice on issues such as Workplace Health and Safety and Quality Assurance.
Small groups were formed to develop policy positions on behalf of the industry, which were then presented and discussed with government departments such as Main Roads.
“We formed think-tanks and became very proactive instead of just waiting for bad news” Traynor said, “but it wasn’t easy as we had members getting $300,000 bills for workers comp in those days”
When Traynor handed the presidency over to Gary Deane in 1993, membership had grown to 40. This was at a time when the focus of the AERCF in Queensland was having a major influence within the national body. As such there became a strong push for more Queensland representation on the national council.
There was also the issue of identifying a name that reflected the evolving broader focus and changing nature of the AERCF membership. The major debate centered on the inclusion of the word “earthmovers” in the Federation’s name.
The Australian Earthmovers and Road Contractors Federation was a national body and required representation from all states and territories, however a couple of key states, NSW and Victoria, were adamant that the name should remain unchanged.
Despite this Gary Deane believed the organization needed to evolve in order to reach its maximum potential. He strongly and successfully advocated a name change and in 1993 the Civil Contractors Federation was born.
The following year Keith McIlwain took on the Presidency and was the first to serve a two-year term from 1994 to 1996 under the new CCF banner. The committee was also strong with 20 active members.
There were three main issues on the agenda of McIlwain’s Presidency;
1) Training
2) Main Roads operations in the competitive market
3) Continuing to build a collective community of contractors across Queensland
On the training front the CCF indentified the need for a training body that understood the needs of the industry and focused on delivering skills development opportunities for civil workers.
The board agreed that it was unlikely that a third party would be able to deliver on those needs and that the CCF needed to become a registered training organization. The resulting body was aptly named “Civil Train”, a reflection of the practical and no-nonsense manner with which much of the CCF’s business was conducted.
Queensland was the first branch to tackle the training issue and it has clearly left a long lasting legacy across the federation nationally with Civil Train now operating across Australia.
Through the mid 90’s CCF membership continued to grow and in 1995 the first of many CCF membership road trips was undertaken. These trips hit the regional centers of the state and were focused on building membership as well as establishing a wider network of contractors
In 1996 with Rob Borbidge as Premier, Vaughan Johnson the Minister for Main Roads and Dick Wharton, the Director General of the Main Roads Department, building solid government relationships was pivotal to the CCF as it began to tackle the issue of Main Roads in the open market.
McIlwain recalls that members’ main concern was Main Roads undertaking work internally that they felt should have been put to tender and delivered by contractors. Even today this issue remains with the operation of RoadTek a continual source of conjecture amongst members.
Also in 1996 Queensland hosted its first ever national conference on the Gold Coast and John Clark was voted in as Queensland President.
Up until this point the CCF in Queensland had focused much of its finite resources on effecting change within the state government. Through Clark’s presidency this focus broadened to include local government.
His experience in local government would prove invaluable as the CCF began to work closely with the Institute of Municipal Engineers (now the Institute of Public Works Engineers) to develop a standard set of documents and drawings for local government infrastructure.
With about 130 local authorities all with their own rules, the whole industry saw the need for commonality of standards.
“This was particularly evident because construction of the M1 cut across three municipalities” Clark said.
These standard drawings would prove to provide significant cost savings for councils and also assist contractors in working across different local boundaries without the need to learn new systems and processes for each one.
These drawings are regularly updated and still in use today!
Once the Beattie Government took office the training aspect of the CCF moved up a gear. According to Clark the skills shortage in Queensland was already becoming very obvious but the upside of this was that the training component of the CCF was helping to build its profile in the eyes of the state government.
“And for the first time a decent budget surplus was achieved thanks to the training dollars from Civil Train” Clark said.
Dick Sudholz Presidency from 1998 to 2000 firmly established the statewide focus of the CCF. Sudholz came from Goondiwindi and he wanted to ensure that the views of members outside the southeast corner of the state were heard and acted upon. A focus he still brings to the federation.
“We definitely broadened our base to about 15 per cent regional members”, Sudholz recalls.
Even before he took the office of President, Sudholz was influential in instilling a strong corporate culture within the organization. All past Presidents fondly recall the strategic planning sessions that took place at “Camp David” along the banks of the McIntyre River at Goondiwindi.
These trips to “Camp David” were followed in later years with similar strategic planning retreats and “overseas” delegations to Moreton Island.
The culture of mateship has been a strong feature of the first 18-years of the CCF, and has been aptly summarized by Sudholz who said “I’ve made great lifelong friends and excellent business contacts during my times at the CCF”
In 2000 John Hull began his two year tenure as State President. Civil Train had been up and running for close to 5-years and both government and industry were beginning to place more emphasis on training and skills development in the civil sector.
At that time a “Certificate III” in civil construction was established and that meant that for the first time workers in the civil industry could now obtain nationally recognized trade qualifications. “At last there was trade recognition for the civil construction industry,” Hull said.
The CCF through Civil Train got to work developing syllabuses and putting the people and processes in place that would enable the Federation to embark on Certificate III training.
The by-product of this was that it helped boost the level of respect the CCF received from State and Local Government, which now viewed the Federation as a part of a national force rather than just a “Brisbane Show”.
By 2002 it was becoming very clear that Queensland was about to suffer the consequences of an infrastructure backlog. It was then that John Seymour moved into the Presidents Chair and made this issue his priority number one.
The ensuing result was the establishment of the Civil Engineering Construction Alliance (CECA). This Seymour/CCF initiative was formed to mount a collective case to the state government on the infrastructure issue.
CECA comprised of:
- The CCF
- The QMCA
- The Association of Consulting Engineers Australia
- Engineers Australia
- The Australian Asphalt Pavement Association
- The Cement, Concrete and Aggregates Association
- The Institute of Public Works Engineers
CECA agreed to commission a report that highlighted the need for urgent spending on the state’s infrastructure. Professor Alan Layton from the Queensland University of Technology was appointed to undertake the research.
The resulting report titled “Building Our Future: The Need for Increased Infrastructure Investment in Queensland” was released in February 2004 and highlighted the desperate state of the Queensland’s infrastructure and need for urgent and significant investment.
Seymour then forwarded the report to all the government departments along with the Courier Mail and the Financial Review.
“The Courier Mail took it up as a cause in a six part editorial series which raised the profile of the issue across the community and within the government,” Seymour said. “The bureaucrats knew we were right and they pushed from below, resulting in a greater commitment to infrastructure from the government.”
In March 2004 Chris White came in to replace the long standing Graham Dodd as the Executive Director of the CCF in Queensland and Sid Strano, a Bundaberg Contractor, took the Presidency back to the bush.
Strano reinstated the Regional Board meetings as he, like Dick Sudholz before him, was keen to ensure the CCF continued as an organization for all contractors, no matter where they were located.
“I think it’s imperative to learn and have the opportunity to discuss issues with your peers,” Strano said “For us, the networking is so important, to recharge the batteries and learn, learn, learn.”
Strano clearly remembers one of those meetings when someone from Brisbane started talking about potable recycled water. “I had never heard of it until then and now we use little else,” he said.
In 2006 Paul Fogarty became the 10th President of the CCF in Queensland when Main Roads and Training were again the top issues, while Robert Row was appointed Branch CEO in April 2007. This followed the departure of Chris White who took up the position of CEO at the CCF National Office.
Fogarty commissioned a report into the capacity of CCF members to undertake work for the State Government. The report identified a number of recommendations which were addressed with MR through a joint Main Roads / CCF Steering Committee chaired by the Deputy Director General, Les Ford.
“The committee made it clear that we needed Main Roads to unbundle the big projects so our midsize contractors could tender”, he said.
Over the past couple of years the CCF has expanded its operations to include a dedicated Cairns office. There were also new appointments in Marketing and Communications, Workplace Health and Safety and Training Services, to further broaden the service delivery of the Federation.
Two significant new initiatives were also launched in 2007/08. The first of which was “Queensland Insight”, the quarterly magazine of the CCF Queensland Branch. The first edition was delivered in December 2007 and the magazine has since grown to be a leading publication for the industry.
The second initiative was the launch of a State conference in 2008. This one day event is set to grow in future years and provide members with yet another opportunity to learn, influence governments, network and build relationships.