The first panel session of Roads Australia’s Transforming Transport Summit included three of Australasia’s most senior transport officials – Josh Murray Secretary of Transport for NSW, Paul Younis, Secretary of Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning and Brett Gliddon, General Manager – Transport Services at NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.
They discussed some of the shared challenges in their respective jurisdictions from risk allocation and climate resilience to an uncertain global environment. Cross jurisdictional collaboration, pipeline management and sharing lessons learned in major project delivery were key topics of conversation.
Josh Murray called on the transport sector to play a bigger role in the opportunities to improve safety, better integrate housing and transport networks and improve construction industry culture.
On risk allocation, Paul Younis highlighted the need to continually review the risk settings around major project delivery. Offering North-East Link as a best practice example, he described how the contract model for the project was changed a number of times, with consultation and market sounding across the global transport sector to ensure the risk settings across the entire supply chain were right.
Reflecting on recent changes to the NZ infrastructure pipeline after a change in Government, Brett Gliddon: “You’ve got to go in eyes open around the risk profile for your projects. You have to be innovative in your procurement models and suiting them to the project at hand.” He also shared insights into NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi‘s engagement with Maori people and the lessons applicable to increasing diversity in Australia’s transport workforce.
The need to integrate transport and infrastructure networks to unlock the full benefits of investment was a key point of discussion. Paul Younis and Josh Murray both stressed that infrastructure needs to leave a lasting legacy and benefit communities, highlighting the city-shaping potential of investments such as Suburban Rail Loop and Western Sydney.
