NSW Chapter President, Andrew Nimmo

July 2017

I’m sure you will join me in congratulating Shaun Carter (Immediate Past NSW Chapter President and Chairman of Save Our Sirius) and Millers Point Community Assoc. Incorporated on the successful legal action against the former Minister for Heritage over his failure to respond to the Heritage Council’s recommendation to list the Sirius building on the State Heritage Register.

This was the first time the Heritage Act has been the subject of an action in the Land & Environment Court. The judgment found that the Minister had failed to address the State heritage significance of the brutalist social housing building and that the loss of revenue to the NSW Government from the sale of its site was not a valid reason to refuse the listing.

It was a wonderful example of crowd funded community activism which the Australian Institute of Architects was proud to support.  It has raised the profile of architecture, architects and the Institute and that can only be good for our profession.

This decision is a testament to Shaun’s leadership of the strong campaign to save a major building, but the fight is not over yet. Sirius is still vulnerable because the government is determined to get rid of it.

Better Procurement – but how?
NSW procurement processes are in a parlous state. It’s a subject that features in just about every conversation I have with members, with a common litany of complaints:

• requiring excessive amounts of information at EOI stage;
• limiting the architect’s ability to negotiate by requiring acceptance of conditions of agreement at the time an EOI is submitted;
• unloading unreasonable levels of uninsurable risk on to architects;
• requiring the submission of design ideas without reimbursement and a formal competition process;
• asking for lump sum tenders with insufficient information to define a scope of works; and
• expecting architects to directly engage all sub-consultants.

The list goes on. There is something wrong with procurement in this state, particularly in the public sector. Despite a lot of hard work put in over recent years by the Chapter with Consult Australia and the Association of Consulting Architects, examples of poor procurement seem to be growing and getting worse.

Chapter Council has therefore agreed to set up a Procurement Taskforce to collate examples of poor procurement and engage directly with client bodies on what are the benefits of better procurement. The first Procurement Taskforce meeting was held last week and we intend to invite members in the near future to inform us about current and upcoming tenders or EOIs that are examples of poor procurement. Once we have gathered sufficient data, we will then be in a position to better articulate our grievances, supported by evidence.

Andrew Nimmo
NSW Chapter President