Victoria has seen record investment across its infrastructure pipeline over the past decade, with much of it overseen in various stages by Duncan Elliott having previously lead North East Link and now as CEO of Major Road Projects Victoria (MRPV). Duncan joined transport leaders from across the public and private sectors in Melbourne at today’s Roads Australia Industry lunch to provide an update on major projects across his purview.
With experience across multiple government transport agencies, Duncan stressed the importance of collaboration across government to ensure lessons are learnt and transferred across projects following the folding in of staff from the West Gate Tunnel Project and North East Link Authority under the MRPV banner.
While maintaining a strong investment pipeline, Victoria’s pipeline has now stablished, further emphasising the importance of managing projects in an efficient manner, delivering outcomes with an understanding of the fiscal pressures facing the state.
Duncan highlighted the benefits of Victoria’s new Premier, the Hon. Jacinta Allan, having served as Minister for Transport and Infrastructure since 2018 and having a strong understanding of the importance of the state-shaping nature of major road projects and associated transport infrastructure.
Having previously been CEO of the North East Link Project for over six years, Duncan provided an update on progress across the project and the importance of hard work and collaboration in early project stages to streamline the delivery of complex infrastructure.
With Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) set to begin work early next year on the North East Link, extensive community engagement and consultation is underway, creating strong relationships with suburban communities and managing disruption to regular commuter patterns.
Building on the importance on intragovernmental collaboration, Duncan discussed the benefits of keeping the infrastructure pipeline consistent, leading to transferred knowledge across the West Gate Tunnel Project to future underground and tunneling activity.
Duncan also outlined the importance of the innovative Program Delivery Approach adopted by MRPV which has seen 17 projects completed under the model with 16 still on the way. Projects under this model have ensured ongoing work for Tier 3 and Tier 4 companies on significant pieces of public infrastructure.
Duncan placed a strong focus on not just the importance of collaboration across transport agencies but government working closely with the market in areas such as responsive and evolving standards and matching projects with industry capacity.
With social procurement a strong focus of the Victorian Government Duncan outlined the opportunities that have been captured through pipeline investment to deliver real and tangible outcomes for social enterprises, Indigenous participation and gender balance.
RA would like to thank SMEC for partnering with us to deliver this important update to industry on work underway across the MRPV portfolio.
