Steve Golding
Director-General, Main Roads
National Local Roads Congress
Toowoomba, Tuesday, 30 July, 11am
Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to be here to address you today.
You may be aware that Austroads chairman Dr Robin Dunlop cannot be with us today: he sends his apologies. As the Austroads council member from the state hosting this conference, he has asked me to provide a brief overview on the Austroads-local government partnership plan.
Any partnership is only as strong as the commitment of its partners to work together, and that is certainly the case with local government and its importance to Austroads. A sound relationship with local government is key to the success of Austroads, which is keen to ensure that our relationship is mutually productive and beneficial.
The Austroads-local government partnership plan was developed in 1995 as part of moves to build that closer working relationship between the two groups. In recent months both sides have been working to review that partnership plan in order to give it a definite timeframe for implementation and an agreed set of goals. This review and update of the plan has set out principles, processes and priorities for action over a three-year timeframe that could be used by Austroads Council members and program managers to ensure that its direction continues to meet the needs of local government.
The process has been overseen by a steering committee with representatives from Austroads, the ALGA and the Institute of Public Works Engineering (Australia). The committee has sought feedback, in the form of discussions and a survey, on the existing plan from local government state associations and from a small sample of local government engineers across Australia.
I'd like to briefly communicate the review's findings. The first was that communication between Austroads and local government is seen as a weak link in the current partnership plan. As a result, local government respondents said they had only a limited knowledge of Austroads and its outputs. While the principles underpinning the relationship were seen to be positive, the review found that they had not been applied in practice. It also found that time and financial constraints were preventing local government from gaining the full benefits that Austroads offered.
As I have said, the revised plan seeks to redefine the roles and responsibilities of the partners, to establish shared principles, and set down specific actions and timetables. It also recommends regular meetings between Austroads and local government at a state and territory level, the setting up of an ALGA-IPWEA research group to identify issues of concern to local government, and ways to increase local government's involvement in Austroads projects and processes.
I think the revised partnership plan reflects a commitment to building a better relationship. It clearly sets out two things: the need for commonly agreed goals and a timeframe in which to achieve them.
This review comes at an important time in the local government-Austroads relationship. As you would know, the ALGA is currently re-examining its roads and transport strategy and, as part of this, its continuing membership of Austroads.
The bottom line is that local government is important to Austroads, and it is keen to work with them to ensure that the relationship is a productive and mutually beneficial one. Our mutual best interest will be served by an improved, genuinely collaborative ongoing relationship between the two groups.
That need for collaboration is more relevant than ever in the current economic climate. Increasingly, communities are turning to government and industry for integrated solutions to their issues - solutions where silos are irrelevant. In tight funding times, that makes sense. As funds contract, the community is changing its expectations of how all levels of government should be spending their available dollars. Local and state governments must look for new ways to do more with the available funding dollar, and build new partnerships that will allow them to actively pursue extra sources of funding.
We have to make sure that our spending is more focussed than ever on delivery of services, because, despite tight economic times, the community rightly expects that its transport infrastructure will remain at a high standard. Some may say that these expectations are difficult to meet, given available funds, but I think that we have to accept the challenge.
It's important to remember that this challenge is not unique to government, but part of a shift in what the community expects to receive for its dollar. In our daily lives, we all want more for less. For example, five years ago, someone looking for a new car would accept that a CD player and driver airbags were luxury items, unlikely to be found in a car priced under $35,000. Today, buyers expect these features to be standard in new cars less than half that price. That has happened for one reason: people want more for their dollar. That is also true for those of us here. Government agencies can no longer expect to sit back and simply receive taxpayer funds in their yearly budget, indexed for inflation. The public legitimately expect us to do more with less.
Increasingly, governments are asking us to do the same. The current federal budget has given us $78 million less than Queensland had been expecting. Main Roads and Transport Minister Steve Bredhauer, speaking yesterday, clearly indicated his disappointment at this outcome.
The Minister also indicated his concern about likely federal government plans to review the 1991 Roads Agreement in favour of its AusLink proposal.
Although we are yet to hear full detail from the federal government, it appears that AusLink will give preference to projects that take an integrated transport approach. Neither the Minister nor the department would have an argument with that: Main Roads is pursuing just such an agenda at the state level.
The concern is that the commitments made to Queensland under the existing Roads Agreement may now not eventuate. A large part of our roads planning in recent years has been made on the basis that this funding would be forthcoming.
Minister Bredhauer and other state transport ministers have indicated in media reports that they had serious concerns about the AusLink proposal. It remains to be seen how discussions on the subject will unfold at the Australian Transport Council meeting next month. It is fair to say, though, that the state will await the debate with interest.
Regardless of this debate, Main Roads must continue to build other partnerships, and find other sources of funding.
I think that, at the state level, my department has clearly shown that it is working to achieve this goal. Main Roads has worked tirelessly with local government organisations in Queensland in recent years to forge the Alliance, which marks a new direction in the relationship between the two organisations in this state.
The proposed Alliance is a commitment by Main Roads and local government to get better value out of all available roads dollars by improved planning, better purchasing and resource sharing, and investment in and improvement of our capability. It includes the transfer of substantial authority to regional road groups comprising elected councillors and a Main Roads representative. The agreement will also provide greater funding certainty by increasing the number of years of fixed funding available to councils for that set of state-controlled roads that are similar to local government roads. In doing so, we are putting in the hands of councils the tool with which they can better plan their future works.
Under the Alliance, those works will also be more focussed on delivering outcomes for the total road network. The Alliance is a plan to make road building and funding decisions based on agreed priority projects, rather than on the basis of local authority boundaries. It encourages councils to work with each other and with the state government in order to achieve benefits for all concerned.
The Alliance document has been through nine drafts, and the subject of discussion at LGAQ forums over the past four years. One of the strengths of this document lies in the fact that local government has worked hard with Main Roads to bring it to fruition.
The document has already received the approval of the LGAQ. The next step should come next month, when a major announcement on its implementation can be expected. I look forward to being able to speak with you on that topic at future meetings.
Besides the Alliance, there are other good examples of how the department is listening to its partners, and using what we're being told to guide our long-term direction. The development and implementation of our newly released roads blueprint, Roads Connecting Queenslanders, has included substantial consultation with our partners. The document itself stresses the need for the Department to build stronger relationships if it is going to achieve its aim: taking Main Roads from being a good road agency to a good government agency.
RCQ is Main Roads' long-term vision, covering the next 15-plus years. Launched by the Minister on May 3, it sets out the choices Main Roads has to make as a department. Under the RCQ the department will be a road system manager, looking at roads within a wider land use and transport context. When investing in roads, it will also be investing in outcomes. The document also clearly sets out what we must do to improve our performance and our capability.
Within the department, we have summed up RCQ under the phrase Doing it Right. That's exactly what we expect our stakeholders to see when RCQ's aims are in place: a professional government agency that has the human and technical skills to deliver the state's transport needs.
RCQ, and the Alliance with local government, require that we also become a manager of the total road system. That aligns us more closely with the road users' expectation of a seamless journey: road users care more about being able to get where they need to go safely and efficiently, rather than who is responsible for a given stretch of road.
In meeting that demand, we have had to strike another balance: one between our role as a builder and maintainer of roads, technology leader and as an agency that delivers roads outcomes. Getting that balance right means knowing our own capabilities and knowing the capabilities of our local government and private sector road-building partners, then matching it with our projections of the state's road requirements over the next 20 years. In the process, we are also building on our strengths, maintaining our technical expertise while also focussing on how we coordinate the delivery of roads. Main Roads needs to continue to take that lead role in setting the standards for road delivery statewide if we're to meet our commitments to government, the community and business.
In conclusion, I think it's fair to say that Main Roads is increasingly turning to alliances and partnerships with its public and private colleagues as we continue to run a sustainable roads business in Queensland. It is through innovative new links and more dynamic solutions that we will find solutions to the state's transport needs. In the private sector, our work with Leighton Construction on the Port of Brisbane Motorway has given us a project that is, to date, ahead of schedule and under budget. It is a project that serves as a model for future collaborations.
Like the Department, the ALGA and LGAQ are progressive organisations. The partnership plan and the Alliance are two projects that, through their collaborative nature, promise much for the future. We look forward to working with them, and with our community, business and government partners, to deliver the transport outcomes that Queenslanders will need in the coming decades.
Thank you.
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