President's Report - March 2025

ANNUAL CONFERENCE – IT’S A WRAP

The 2025 Annual Conference is done and dusted. The hard work of finding and confirming speakers, scoping appropriately sized venues, organising audio/visual facilities and photographers, dealing with cancellations and preparing run sheets is over. Of course 99.9% of the work was done by Rachel Greenwood , Alana Scott , Becky Mellor , Gabrielle May Bowen and Amanda W. with Tom Casey aka Thomas Casey stringing it together over the two days as master of ceremonies. They all deserve our congratulations.

Conference photos are available here. You can read more about the conference in coming feature articles. That said, I’d like to specifically mention three that resonated with me.

• Sam Bloom was an inspirational keynote speaker. Her resilience from her personal tragedy set the tone for the rest of the conference. I had the opportunity to speak to her after her presentation. I won’t forget the experience any time soon.

• A highlight for me was the gala dinner where we had the opportunity to celebrate 50-years membership recipients John Holt , Robert Monteath , Ed Garvin , Greg Oxley and Peter Burns (pictured at the lectern). Each surveyor shared their story about how they choose the profession of surveying and why they remained in the profession for so long. A common theme was having a good mentor who coached them in life skills and the importance of community. These surveyors all went on make their mark and most fostered the next generation of surveyors. It was great to see a table full of "young” surveyors from John Holt’s past join us to celebrate his achievements.
• The last highlight was hearing from NSW Member of Parliament Roy Butler . Roy is the first politician asked to present at our annual conference. His electorate, the state's largest at 44% of New South Wales has it challenges. In Roy’s view, service delivery and sustainable economic activity is affected by legislation and policies designed for the more densely populated areas of the state. There is some change happening with one Council, Central Darling Shire Council soon to move to a mix of locally elected councillors and state appointed experts. This co-governance model is innovative and will work. I'd like to see the same innovative mindset applied to parts of the NSW planning and environmental approvals framework. Changes are needed if we're want to ensure our regional and remote communities are to remain part of NSW’s first world economy.

MORE HOUSING – WHEN, WHERE AND HOW?

A worrying fact from the Annual Conference was the need for more housing. Victorian Surveyor General Craig Sandy LS GAICD shared his government’s aim for 80,000 new homes each year for the next 30 years. Similarly, Surveyor General Greg Ledwidge from the much smaller Australian Capital Territory stated the ACT government wants another 5,000 homes by 2030. I’m aware that New South Wales has similar aspirations to Victoria at 75,000 homes each year. These are stretch goals, and the nation will struggle to meet them. Something needs to change, and I believe I the solution will be multi-faceted.

HOUSING CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTIVITY – A DEPRESSING FACT

Shane Wright, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald in its 20th February edition, referenced the recent Australian Productivity Commission ’s report on Housing Construction Productivity. Below are excerpts from Shane’s summary:

• The Reserve Bank is tipping the economy to grow by around 2.3% per year for the next two years. For most of this century, economists have thought the economy could grow around 2.75% without troubling the jobs market and inflation. While the (Reserve) bank didn’t concede it, this new forecast suggests the pace at which the economy can safely grow is around 2.3%.
• That difference of 0.45% might seem small. Over 10 years, however, it is around $200 billion or like removing South Australia and the ACT from the national economy. The RBA reckons productivity fell by 1.9% over the past 12 months.
• A report from the Productivity Commission this week explains what falling productivity levels mean. Across the home construction sector, the commission found productivity had dropped by 12% over the past 30 years. Across the rest of the economy, it had lifted by 49%.
• The Productivity Commission put it in terms of the time it takes to build a home. A decade ago, the average time to build a detached house was 6.4 months. It is now 10.4 months.
• The time to build a new townhouse has increased to 12.9 months from 9.4 months, while for a block of apartments it has blown out to 27.8 months from 18.5 months. Yes, the quality of our new homes has improved. But even taking that into account, our ability to build affordable houses in a timely manner has deteriorated over a long period of time.
• What was more surprising was that, compared to nations such as Germany, France, Britain and the United States, productivity was actually higher on building sites here.
• As the Productivity Commission found, from planning regulations to NIMBYism to the plethora of tiny mum-and-dad businesses who struggle to come up with new ways to build quicker, there are troubles everywhere. But it’s also a global problem which suggests we should keep looking overseas for solutions.

There’s an excellent interview with the Productivity Commissioner's Danielle Wood at https://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/the-business/2025-02-17/construction-has-been-going-backwards-for-30/104947798?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

The Productivity Commission report can be found at https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/housing-construction.?

LOW PRODUCTIVITY – WHAT CAN WE DO?

Besides continued lobbying to set aside or revamp existing policies, the profession should also look within.

The Demand Study has been going for nearly 10 years now. This is the Surveyors Australia initiative, supported by bodies such as ISNSW, that provides hard data on the number of surveyors and support personnel we will need in Australia to support current and future infrastructure needs.

The report authors, Oxford Economics Australia (formerly BIS Shrapnel), presumes a 1% increase in productivity, year on year.

My question is this, in the 10 years since the initial study, is the profession and wider industry 10% more productive doing what we do as surveyors? I doubt it. I know I’m not. My firm is certainly better at railway surveying compared to 10 years ago but the increased speed in the field has caused choke points to open up in our office processes. We're also hamstrung by long development assessment times for development approvals. We have a culture of seeking the “one percenters” in our processes. We had to otherwise we were going to choke on excess work. Can this be applied elsewhere?

Innovation is needed to drive productivity and that means smarter thinking. It isn’t just technology; it includes how we manage people. Often, this means upskilling which means training. Yes, buy the latest tech, you’ll need it just to match the pace of your competitor, but don’t discount the need to train the people around you. If you can’t do it, then get someone else who can.

Not all surveyors need to go to university. But survey technicians and support staff need to be offered opportunities to learn and develop more skills. They’ll see things you won’t so invest across your team. Don’t choose favourites. Investing in people has a multiple payback. It is also necessary if we are ever going to be able to deliver the housing targets.

ISNSW – WHAT’S ITS DIRECTION FOR 2025?

We held our annual strategy meeting the day before the annual conference. ISNSW operates on four pillars: Membership, Advocacy, Education and Sustainability. Life Member Ed Garvin return to facilitate the day. Besides being a surveyor, Ed has an MBA and completed the Australian Company Directors course. He has also owned and operated his own consulting surveying practice and established a start-up Land Information firm for property estate managers.

The afternoon session saw the ISNSW board joined by the eight regional chairs. I believe the group to be ISNSW’s leadership group. They will be responsible for carrying out the set goals for the next 12 months.

We were also joined by Nic Hinwood of KEO marketing. Nic help the group workshop a values and culture session. Culture is defined by values. It is often said that Ethics is downstream from culture. We can have multiple codes, laws and regulations, but they aren’t worth anything unless we have people who believe in them.

Pillar 1 – Sustainability

This pillar sets, promotes and maintains standards of professional practice to facilitate accountability to the public and members. To do this, ISNSW must:

• Process complaints by the public and other surveyors and liaise with BOSSI for possible action.
• Review Code of Ethics and publicise regularly to promote to members and the public.
• Diversify and expand revenue streams beyond traditional sources (membership & events
• Identify future trends to remain sustainable.

Expanding on these points, we need to develop our pipeline of talent. The future leaders are in the profession now. They are our young 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds. Attracting, supporting and mentoring them to higher positions in ISNSW takes time, patience and resources. They need to be sheltered from the haters and serial complainers until they are sufficiently seasoned and capable of thinking on their feet, directing strategy, understand policy settings, reading balance sheets and building their own networks outside the profession. It isn’t easy but it can be done, and often in a team environment

Pillar 2 – Membership

This pillar aims to provide professional development and networking opportunities for Members and those working in Surveying and geospatial information. To do this, ISNSW must:

• Organise and run events/seminars/workshops on a variety of technical and professional themes.
• Support Regional & Interest Group meetings tailored to their unique needs.
• Establish mentorship programmes/initiatives to connect emerging professionals with experienced surveyors, fostering long-term professional growth
• Increase diversity, inclusion and membership numbers and with outreach to others within the profession

Pillar 3 – Advocacy

On behalf of the profession to key stakeholders including government, policy makers and the community. To do this, ISNSW must:

• Promote the critical role of surveying as a valuable career to the community.
• Be at the forefront of legislative changes. Lead, develop and maintain best practice standards to reflect new technologies and regulations specific to NSW.
• Engage with NSW state and local governments to influence policies and regulations related to land management, infrastructure, and critical issues.
• Liaise with allied organisations for concerted action with approach to government

Pillar 4 – Education

Promoting and advancing knowledge and research in the fields of surveying and geospatial information. To do this, ISNSW must:

• Launch educational initiatives across NSW to raise public awareness and the importance of surveying in the community.
• Strengthen partnerships with universities and TAFE to enhance mutual understanding of industry requirements and academic environments (and course content) through regular workshops, industry roundtables etc.
• Provide relevant and specific educational opportunities and support for students, graduates & mentors to ensure the body of knowledge is passed on.
• Collaborate with NSW-based academic institutions to promote research in innovative surveying technologies and sustainable practices, advancing the field.

We will have challenges meeting these goals but they remain relevant.

See you next month.

Yours in surveying,

Mitchel Hanlon

President ISNSW

24 February 2025