Engineers welcome infrastructure spend but cautious on outlook

The Coalition has set itself an ambitious infrastructure target in the federal budget with billions of dollars earmarked for infrastructure spending. While this $11.6 billion investment package is strongly welcomed by the engineering profession, peak professional body Engineers Australia cautions that historical fluctuations in Australia's skills base casts a cloud of doubt over our ability to deliver.

Engineers Australia Chief Executive Officer, Stephen Durkin, said that Australia’s engineering community is cautiously optimistic, “there aren’t many people in Australia who are more in favour of building better infrastructure than the engineers we rely upon to actually deliver it.

“Australia is having real problems retaining skilled engineers in its workforce with over 40 percent of qualified engineers now working in jobs outside of the engineering profession. With 27 straight months of national decline in engineering job ads, we need to reinvigorate the engineering sector, and any infrastructure spend is welcome news,” said Mr Durkin.

“While the proposed federal infrastructure spend is measured in billions of dollars, government needs to ensure that in the rush to deliver these projects it doesn’t skimp on proper planning. While we need infrastructure investment to drive national productivity, we also need to ensure that high standards of project planning and transparency are maintained.

“Infrastructure planning takes time and technical expertise. A couple of decades ago there were over 100,000 engineers employed across the government sector, today there are less than 20,000. With reduced access to technical expertise, government must take extra steps to ensure these projects represent real value for taxpayers’ money. Planning and transparency are critical.

“The engineering profession is optimistic about the government’s infrastructure plans. Engineers Australia is supportive of this ambitious public infrastructure agenda and the profession stands ready to work with government to make their visions a reality. Australia needs infrastructure investment, and we need it urgently,” said Mr Durkin.

May 13, 2014. Engineers Australia

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