ACIF’s 3 Priorities for the Building and Construction Industry in 2016

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James Cameron, the new Executive Director of the Australian Construction Industry Forum (ACIF), has highlighted the organisation’s priority areas for 2016 in his maiden article on the ACIF website. 

Cameron took over from former Executive Director Peter Barda, who retired August 2015 after eight years with the organisation. In his first article Cameron addresses where the organisation will focus its energies in 2016, highlighting three priority areas in the process.

ACIF’s first priority is to make sure the right people understand the key needs of the construction industry, which employs 1.1 million people but builds homes, workplaces, hospitals, schools and public spaces for all 23 million Australians.

To ensure the industry’s ideas are heard by the right people in 2016, ACIF aims to engage with Federal politicians and regulators. ACIF Members have collaborated to develop a set of policies that address the industry’s key needs and approaches across: Housing Affordability; Design and Construction for a Sustainable Industry; Government Economic Management – Regulation; Occupational Licensing; Procurement; Workforce Development and Relations; and Workplace Health and Safety.

The second priority area for the Australian construction industry is to aim for the Number 1 ranking in the world across a range of indicators, much like the Wallabies, the Australian cricket team and the Australian netball team.

ACIF and its key government partner, Australasian Procurement and Construction Council, have jointly produced a series of resources to improve how all industry stakeholders work, to make it safer, more fulfilling and more cost effective but more importantly, produce a better built environment for all Australians.

ACIF’s third priority is to make sure this industry has the right intelligence with which to drive its decision-making. The industry not only needs an evidence base for what has happened, and a reliable set of data and information on what is coming, but also needs to focus on better, clearer, more specific information that can inform the big strategic questions of the industry, as well as the small, more localised ones for individual businesses.

Cameron welcomes inputs and ideas from ACIF Members to continually make things better for the Australian building and construction industry.