This year is rapidly running out, but there are major activities affecting us and our profession that continue to occur at a frenetic pace, and what a great month October turned out to be for Engineers Australia in Queensland.
During October, we completed organisational change presentations to the majority of our Regional Committees, with only a few remaining to be completed over the next month. This process was undertaken jointly by myself, our national CEO Stephen Durkin and Ian McEwan, our Queensland General Manager. This also gave me a great opportunity to catch up with a number of our regionally-based members and exchange ideas on local issues throughout the state.
After a final round of consultation, on 20 October we successfully launched the first of our Queensland policy position papers, this one being on Infrastructure planning. If members haven’t yet had the chance to access this paper it is available online through our website in both full paper and ‘Snapshot’ (2 pages) format. View the Full Paper or View the Snapshot.
This paper was launched in conjunction with presentations from the CEO of Building Queensland David Quinn, and John Pickhaver from Macquarie Capital, with whom Engineers Australia has now signed a national MoU. This Engineers Australia Infrastructure paper has now been used by our Victorian, South Australian and Western Australian Divisions to support their respective engagements with their State Governments, as well as being provided by us to our Queensland Government. It has been universally well received.
The Queensland Government has now released for comment its Draft State Infrastructure Plan (SIP) document for comment and Engineers Australia was invited in Brisbane to the first of a number of industry engagement forums that will be held around the state, ahead of our preparation of our formal consultation response document due by 4 December. Copies of the Government’s Draft SIP can be downloaded from the Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning website.October also saw our catchup meeting with Engineering Faculty Deans from the various Queensland universities, which generated some great discussion on the status and future of our evolving profession, as well as identifying some tangible initiatives to jointly pursue for the benefit of our next generation of engineers.
It has been a very active month for our media engagement activities. You may have seen Engineers Australia taking a prominent position throughout the last month on behalf of our members and communities with regard to issues including the sink hole at Inskip Point; the engineering job situation; a collapsed water tank on the Sunshine Coast; an engineering contracting position proposed by a Brisbane mayoral candidate; as well as others on a state-wide and national basis.
There were a number of great events throughout October, not the least of which was the official awarding of the first International Engineering Heritage Marker to the ingenious mechanical Totalisator now held at Eagle Farm racecourse. Read our media release on the Julius Totalisator. November includes our Annual Division Meeting event, which is a great opportunity to review the year’s activities and celebrate the achievements of our new inductees to the Queensland Engineering Hall of Fame, new Fellows, and other Award recipients.
Hope to see many of you at one of our upcoming events this month.
Chris Warnock FIEAust CPEng RPEQ
Queensland Division President 2015