Strategy & leadership lessons from the Sydney Metro Martin Place project with David Harding
Building a winning strategy on a major project rarely starts with a clever line in a submission. It starts with outcomes. What are we trying to create, for whom and how do we make sure every stakeholder can see themselves in it? That’s what I wanted to discuss with David Harding, a senior executive and board leader with deep experience across infrastructure, construction, energy, transport and public policy, and someone I’ve worked with on some of the most complex pursuits of my career.
Strategy starts with outcomes, not slogans
David and I went back to the Sydney Metro Martin Place integrated station development, the Macquarie Group unsolicited proposal that became part of the fabric of Sydney. What made it special wasn’t just the scale. It was the ambition. The vision was world-standard across precinct build, city regeneration, transport connection and design and it was built on the back of an opportunity created by other people’s decisions. The NSW Government chose to build a metro network through Sydney. That created the conditions for regeneration around Martin Place.
David’s point was simple. A strategy without a north star is aimless. You need clear outcomes, and on something this complex you usually need multiple north stars. The work is then to quantify and describe those outcomes in language that different stakeholders can believe in, not just accept. That includes government agencies, the economy, communities, transport authorities, delivery partners, and only then the commercial party at the centre of the proposal.
Direct, indirect, and amplified benefit
We talked about a concept that has stayed with me since that project. The idea of direct, indirect, and amplified benefit.
If you are proposing a solution that only you can deliver, you have to show more than compliance and capability. You have to show why the outcome matters beyond the immediate project. What is the direct benefit. What is the indirect benefit. Then what is the amplified benefit that flows well beyond the parties in the room.
David described unsolicited proposals as unlockers. They connect pieces that government often cannot connect within silos, budgets, or existing strategies. They link things in unusual ways that create much larger outcomes. The design and engineering might be impressive, but the real win is the human outcome. Movement that creates joy, not just a way to get from A to B. A precinct that improves the city experience and lasts for generations.
Powerhouse Museum, Parramatta
We shifted to another project David was involved in, the Powerhouse Museum in Parramatta, part of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. David described it as the largest cultural investment Australia has made since the Opera House, and it went through an international architectural competition before a local Australian team won.
What stood out to me in his reflection was how consistent his approach was. Outcomes first. What does the site need to represent. How does it reflect engineering history, cast back thousands of years, and also present Western Sydney to the world.
He talked about those early days too, which will feel familiar to anyone who has worked on major pursuits. A small rented office. A few people around a table. Scratching heads about materiality and requirements, but always coming back to the same question. What are we trying to achieve?
Tendering is storytelling, not paperwork
It’s easy to underplay what we do because the work looks technical from the outside. But the best bids are not won purely on figures and facts. They are won on trust, capability, capacity, and the feeling that the team understands the job, understands the client, and can deliver the outcome safely and well.
Storytelling is what brings the pieces together. Reputation, expertise, experience, ethics, leadership, and the ability to deliver dreams. It is also what translates technical detail into human meaning. ETCS Level 2 signalling sounds like jargon until you explain it as faster, safer, quieter, more efficient travel for the mother sitting on a train with her child. That translation is part of the craft.
Leadership lessons from the Royal Navy
David spent almost nine years in the Royal Navy, and the leadership lessons he took from it were not what people usually assume. He described it as principled, mature, and in many ways gentler than the stereotype.
The core idea was clarity of outcomes paired with empowerment. Be incredibly clear about the overall aim, then give people agency as far down the line as you can. That only works if you have the right people in the right roles with the right training, tools, motivations, and ethics. Training was the foundation.
He also challenged the common assumption that military leadership is rigid. In his view, it is designed to be resilient under pressure and independent. Admirals do not tell captains what to do. Captains do not tell engineers what to do. People are trained; they understand the aim, and they get on with it as a team.
That approach also showed up in how he talked about safety and planning. He linked strong outcomes to strong planning, and strong planning to safer delivery. Spend more time planning than building. On Martin Place, the team spent years designing before a pick went in the ground, with the builder on board early so the detail could be worked through together.
Modern methods of construction and productivity
We also touched on productivity and modern methods of construction through David’s work with CRC 4.0. His view was practical. Residential housing is not the most complex building type, but the supply chain is convoluted, fragmented, and shaped by regulatory differences across states.
He was bullish about the turning point we are in, but he was also clear about the risk of moving too fast and leaving small business behind. The answer is stepping forward gently and purposefully, bringing industry with you, building capability and capacity, and avoiding binary thinking that declares the old way wrong overnight.
We finished by talking about where the next wave of opportunity sits. Data centres, with social licence and community benefit designed in from the start. Defence and national resilience, not just hardware but cyber, infrastructure, and community resilience. The shift away from a purely mining and farming economy into a broader capability base.
The thread that ran through all of it was the same. Outcomes. Strategy. Leadership. Translation. And the reminder that the work we do in tendering is not just about winning. It is about shaping what gets built, how it gets built, and what it changes for people long after we are gone.
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[00:00:48] Deb: I am joined by David Harding, senior executive and board leader with massively deep experience in infrastructure, construction, energy [00:01:00] transport, public policy. You have worked at the intersection of industry and government. Um, you've helped shape major projects in Australia and investment decisions and long-term strategies that have supported small business, big business, community.
[00:01:16] You have a mind, like a steel trap that I have always thoroughly enjoyed. Um, and, and you really have always brought a big picture perspective to complex challenges. So I'm thoroughly looking forward to having this conversation. I dunno where you're going to take it, but I'm thoroughly looking forward to it.
[00:01:32] David: Neither do I.
[00:01:32] Deb: So Mr. Harding, a very, very warm welcome to you.
[00:01:36] David: Well, thank you for your, uh, very generous introduction. Uh, trying to, uh, trying to put my life story into a hat. Uh, it's quite difficult.
[00:01:44] Deb: We met in 2015. I was rung one Friday afternoon by Paul. We'll leave the last names out of it, um, from Macquarie who told me to sign the life of my first child away, get on a plane, and come and be involved in a top secret project.
[00:01:59] Um, [00:02:00] and that was stage one of Macquarie group's proposal, unsolicited proposal for their global headquarters, integrated with the metro station at Martin Place. And somehow you and I went through all three stages, won the whole thing, and saw it actually built completely. And it's just this extraordinary development and honestly, it's part of the fabric of Sydney.
[00:02:26] Now at the top of Martin Place, you have also been involved in three other, um, successful usps, which is huge. I'd like to ask your thoughts on the standout lessons in terms terms of two areas, one strategy. How do you strategically develop a winning solution like that and two leadership? What are your lessons from them?
[00:02:49] David: Thinking back to the project, the code named Project Code.
[00:02:53] Deb: Project Locus.
[00:02:55] David: Project Locus. Yes, it was indeed. Yes. But we were on back then. It was ever so [00:03:00] exciting, wasn't it? It
[00:03:00] Deb: was
[00:03:01] David: because the vision was so big. Multi-billion dollar might be one way of measuring it, but it wasn't that, it was something that Australia, that Sydney was doing that was going to be a world standard, world standard in precinct build world standard in city regeneration, world standard in transportation and connection, well, standard in design at every level.
[00:03:24] It was an extraordinarily high ambition and an extraordinarily exciting, uh, time. I've rarely enjoyed myself as much as with that small, small but powerful team, which kind of comes to that strategy thing. I think we developed the strategy from that out of opportunity. There was an extraordinary opportunity that came about with others' decisions.
[00:03:46] New South Wales government of course, deciding to build, um, a metro network through Sydney, uh, city and Southwest, going right underneath the old Commonwealth Bank site provided a natural regeneration of that [00:04:00] part of the city recreation of a new city hub. All of that was other people's strategy. But we as a team developed a sub strategy under that to make betterment of those other plans.
[00:04:13] And maybe come back to strategy a little bit, because in those early days, leadership was everything. There was huge leadership from the Macquarie team of course, but the people that they assembled around them were all individuals with great leadership capacity in their own right, including yourself. Of course, nobody was afraid to speak their mind.
[00:04:33] And all those incredibly experienced leaders in that team were very, very, uh, were very respectful of each other. It was a team that gelled. It was a team that grew. It grew from four to five to six to
[00:04:45] Deb: hundreds
[00:04:46] David: to hundreds and then thousands.
[00:04:48] Deb: Yeah. Into
[00:04:49] David: delivery, into thousands, into, into the delivery phase.
[00:04:52] So getting that, um, getting that leadership team right at the beginning is absolutely crucial. Getting [00:05:00] the high level planning around the outcomes sets the strategy. So we didn't really start with strategy. We started with outcomes.
[00:05:08] Deb: Yeah.
[00:05:09] David: The number of internal and external stakeholders in government and elsewhere was enormous.
[00:05:16] Deb: Yeah.
[00:05:16] David: So being absolutely crystal clear about what we as a team wanted to generate for the city of Sydney.
[00:05:24] Deb: Yep.
[00:05:24] David: For New South Wales, for Australia, and of course for transport for New South Wales, for Sydney Metro, for Macquarie Bank, and making sure that all of those outcomes were spoken in the right language to each one of those stakeholders accepted more than accepted, believed in by all of those stakeholders, was what that stage one was all about.
[00:05:43] Deb: It was, and you, you just described beautifully the cascade of, of audience and stakeholders, and I think one of the first things that we did that was a linchpin, honestly, to going forward in all three stages, was that Macquarie was last on that [00:06:00] list.
[00:06:00] David: They were very humble.
[00:06:01] Deb: They were very humble. We weren't trying to achieve outcomes for them.
[00:06:05] We were trying to achieve outcomes for Australia, which seems wonderfully aspirational and everything else, but that's ultimately what we did by developing the strategy that Macquarie did and leading that and, and bringing everybody on board that set the framework for every single CD metro. Integrated station development since then.
[00:06:28] It was the
[00:06:29] David: first, well, I, I was only having a conversation with one of our colleagues more broadly in metro this morning and talking about the fact that that integrated transport hub arrangement, what we called, um, an over stationed and integrated over station development
[00:06:43] Deb: Yeah.
[00:06:44] David: Was, was certainly a global firstt.
[00:06:46] Deb: Yes.
[00:06:46] David: It was the first time it had ever been done in that way in the world. It
[00:06:49] Deb: went from jump slab to fully integrated precinct
[00:06:52] David: mu a much better outcome.
[00:06:54] Deb: Yes.
[00:06:54] David: So again, it comes back to who were we trying to do this for and what was it trying to achieve [00:07:00] and having a team, uh, backing us as we did, who were really trying to reset the standard of transportation and the way that transportation is seen from being something that is a method of getting you from A to B to something that creates joy as well as well.
[00:07:18] Hmm.
[00:07:19] And I,
[00:07:20] I think that kind of really resonated through, and I was talking this morning, um, about how those principles, and of course the engineering, uh, we were fabulous engineer 18 eight. We were, were 18 months to two years ahead of the rest of metro on much of this was, was, was replicable across the network.
[00:07:34] Yeah. Um, in, in some ways. Um, but without getting too distracted, I think that coming back to the strategy to have a good strategy, you have to have good outcomes.
[00:07:43] Deb: Yep.
[00:07:43] David: This point is having a strategy that is aimless. You have to have a north star or a number of north stars in your strategy. And particularly when it comes to, um, something where you are proposing yourself to be a monopoly provider.
[00:07:56] Deb: Yes.
[00:07:56] David: You are the only one.
[00:07:57] Deb: Yes,
[00:07:58] David: you are a unicorn that can [00:08:00] produce amazing sparkles like no other animal. You have to have an extraordinarily well-defined outcome. You have to have an outcome that is beneficial to all manner of government agencies to the economy at large, to individuals and communities that surround and use it.
[00:08:19] All of those things need to be quantified and described in a way that the reader understands. Cuts across all s across all, all languages across.
[00:08:28] Deb: Exactly. I remember when, um, Tim Nunan did a piece for us, the business of cities on, on, on that Macquarie job, and he talked about direct, indirect, and amplified benefit of an outcome.
[00:08:42] And that stayed with me and, and I've applied it to strategic pursuits ever since because there is so much that any tenderer or any, any organisation that's trying to say just us, just work with us, can use in that, you know, so, okay. You have an idea that is going to achieve this [00:09:00] outcome. What's the direct benefit of it?
[00:09:02] It's this, what's the indirect benefit of it? Can you quantify that? It's this and what's this amplified benefit well beyond you, you know, it's not about you. It's about what more it can do for us, for all of us. And I, I really think that that. That type of approach to strategy works better than just what does the client want?
[00:09:23] David: Absolutely, it does. I think that working with a client to create a a higher value outcome. Is the ultimate place to be in. If you are an architect, it's probably pretty much what you want to do every day as an engineer or a commercial specialist. You might have less opportunity directly to play that game, but everyone has to play to see how much you can move, uh, a whole city, a whole state, a whole community forward rather than just deal with a particular technical or marrow outcome.
[00:09:59] The [00:10:00] bigger projects tend to give you those platforms. The bigger USPS tend to give you those platforms because by the very nature unsolicited proposals are unlock us of things which government tend not to be able to do. Right? Yes. Uh, they, they tend to be things that are either a better solution than, uh, the agencies of government can do within their own silos or within their own budgets or within their own strategies, and, and they tend to link pieces together in an unusual manner, which creates much, much more amplified benefits.
[00:10:31] You, to your point of amplification, if you can create something which has a, a complete throughput, uh, vertically, horizontally, uh, in terms of light and sound and movements and so on. Whereas before, you were kind of looking at chunking things together with hard interfaces. Yes, that's a lovely architectural outcome, but it's a great human outcome.
[00:10:52] It, it, it will, it kind of guarantees that those buildings are probably going to be there in 300 years time, maybe even longer than other, less amplified [00:11:00] projects.
[00:11:00] Deb: Let's talk about a building that just reached practical completion, I believe today, the Powerhouse Museum in Parramatta. One that you were also involved in on the design side, winning, winning an element of that.
[00:11:10] Tell us a little bit about, about your involvement in that bid and, and I guess what, what the learnings from that one was.
[00:11:16] David: The powerhouse at Parramatta is part of the Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences of New South Wales. It's the largest cultural investment that Australia has made since the Opera House.
[00:11:26] Deb: Wow. Okay.
[00:11:26] David: Uh, to give you a kind of scale, but going back to, um, pre, uh, COVID days when this new investment in the new geographical centre of Sydney at Parramatta, uh, was being debated and funded by new and ambitious New South Wales government, uh, it went to an international architectural competition, and you can imagine the building of this scale, um, and impact was of great interest, uh, to the world and several hundred, um, you know, architectural groups, uh, took interest in in the competition.
[00:11:59] In the end, a [00:12:00] local Australian team won, which to this day gives me great joy. Um, not that I don't like international architects, but, um, a Melbourne architect firm called, uh, Genten, led by a wonderful architect called Steve Toyer, um, approached me and asked me whether me and my team at Arab might give them some support, which we did.
[00:12:21] And I, uh, had great fun with Steve. Teaching him a little bit about the history as I understood at a Paramatta, which sounds funny from, um, a man with my accent. But I've worked in Western Sydney for a very, very long time. Yeah. And have many friends there. And in fact, uh, my friends and I, uh, use that weather site of the powerhouse for many years as our Saturday morning running spots.
[00:12:42] Uh, you know, we meet there to run every Saturday morning. So for me it was kind of almost like my backyard.
[00:12:47] Deb: Yeah.
[00:12:47] David: Um, and working with Steve on. Again, the outcomes. What were we trying to do with this beautiful Riverside site? What was going to go there that would represent the [00:13:00] wonderful engineering history of Australia?
[00:13:03] What would also cast back many, many thousands of years before that? How would that all come together into a site that was really not a traditional museum, but more a reflection of Australia to the world, Western Sydney to the world. Um, it was going to be an amplifier, not a box to put things in. Um, and in the end, we, we came up with two things, which looked a little bit like, um, milk crates, um, very, very engineering led design.
[00:13:33] Interesting.
[00:13:33] But yes, um, maybe, maybe two boom boxes. Um, incredibly large, uh, museum. Incredibly impressive, uh, piece of engineering to build it by Lendlease. Mm. And yes. Another, you know, another great project that has come through from, you know, very humble, very humble beginnings in a small rented office, uh, in Sydney with three of us sitting around, uh, scratching our heads and thinking about materiality and [00:14:00] outcomes, but mainly outcomes.
[00:14:02] What were the requirements of this building? What was the big dreams that could come through this physicality of the building? And then how do you bring it back to create that scale and reflection of all of the possible outcomes that this building could do? Um, yeah, incredibly proud of that.
[00:14:20] Deb: Got your tickets yet to the foot when it opens.
[00:14:22] I'm sure you do. You get a freebie, I hope.
[00:14:24] David: You bet. In fact, we are just, uh, working with BBC Global at the moment to, uh, to really take it to the world. Uh, I've brought the BBC in, um, and we are, um, as, as, as actually as this moment, uh, BBCO working with the Paramatta team to, uh, to bring the vision of Parramatta powerhouse to, um, you know, hundreds of millions, if not billions of people.
[00:14:47] Wonderful. And, and make, and make Western Sydney, uh, famous to the world. And, and re in many ways, as an outcome, recast the way that people think of Australia. Yeah. Perceive Australia, um, on the, on the [00:15:00] global scene. Nothing wrong with the Harbour Bridge. It's a beautiful thing. Um, and even more so the Opera House, but we can do so much more than those two things.
[00:15:09] Deb: It's really interesting you talk with such passion, and, and, and, you know, people ask me sometimes, you know, what do you do for a living? And it's like, well, I'm a tenderer, but they don't know what that really means because it means that it, it means being involved in things that change the shape and narrative of a country that make a, a, a, a significant immeasurable impact.
[00:15:30] And, and yeah, we're just a teeny tiny part of it. A strategic and, and important part of it, but a very small part of the ultimate story that, that infrastructure will tell.
[00:15:41] David: Can I pick up on the word story?
[00:15:42] Deb: Yeah.
[00:15:43] David: You are a storyteller.
[00:15:44] Deb: Yeah.
[00:15:45] David: You are not a tenderer, you're a story. Oh, you're a story storyteller.
[00:15:49] And, and in your stories, you can bring together the trust, the reputation, the expertise, the experience, the capacity, um, [00:16:00] to deliver dreams. And most of the fun projects that you work in are nation building projects.
[00:16:06] Deb: They are, they absolutely are. Um,
[00:16:07] David: they might sound, uh, quite technical to some, I think you were just talking about ETCS level two signalling, but it means faster, safer, quieter, more efficient for
[00:16:17] Deb: the mother with her child sitting, sitting on a train.
[00:16:20] David: It's a very human, it's a
[00:16:21] Deb: very important thing. It's a very human thing.
[00:16:23] David: It's a very human outcome, but it's a human outcome that will last for generations.
[00:16:26] Deb: That's right.
[00:16:27] David: Outlasts us outlast, you know, generations ahead of us and provide that, uh, that that modern way of, of movement that some of the rest of the world has enjoyed in Australia hasn't.
[00:16:40] But back to the storytelling. It is, it's around that. It's around bringing it all together and saying that this team can deliver the very best outcome to the very best strategy, and also provide the leadership that you spoke about to deliver, um, effectively. And to being able to tell [00:17:00] that story is incredibly important because tenders are not actually one on necessarily what is in the figures and facts and so on.
[00:17:11] It's more in that feeling of, of of trust, capability, capacity that the team brings, which hopefully the client already knows about, but needs to be reminded of in a way that is really most powerful. So it's very important. Storytelling.
[00:17:26] Deb: I'm, I'm feeling a bit moved. You spent almost nine years in the Royal Navy.
[00:17:31] David: It is.
[00:17:31] Deb: How do you think that's shaped your approach to leadership, management of stakeholders projects? How's, how's that time in the Royal Navy shaped you and your career?
[00:17:41] David: I've fundamentally, when I was a teenager, I went to Royal Naval College Officers College and I was taught there, um, a style of leadership that had been in the making for 900 and more years.
[00:17:53] Uh, consistent POS improvement over the years learning, thank goodness, moved away from cats of [00:18:00] nine tails in Keel hauling. I certainly didn't have to drink a pint of rum every day. By my time it was only, you know, once a week. Um, in seriousness, it was a very, very, very, um, highly advanced, matures, um, form of leadership training, uh, which really was quite principled, really in many ways, quite a lot more gentle than you would imagine.
[00:18:22] And it left me with a number of, I think, number of very strong kind of resonances, um, around forming, forming strong teams, having that very strong outcome in mind, and letting people find their own, you know, their own path towards that. Not trying to control everything, but being incredibly clear about what, what the overall aim was, and empowerment and agency at the lowest possible level that you can find.
[00:18:47] Making sure that you. Provide an outcome that everyone knows about, and we've talked about this before, but then finding, uh, the, the ability to make sure you've got the right people that are in the right place with the right [00:19:00] training, the right tools, right motivations. Right, right. Ethics, and then letting them get on with it.
[00:19:05] Training being the most important one of all of them. I call it the lowest level of agency possible.
[00:19:11] Mm.
[00:19:11] To make sure that you give the right training and tooling and agency Mm. As far down the line as you possibly can. Those are the kind of principles that I've always sought to bring to project management, programme management and, and more senior leadership in my career.
[00:19:28] Um, and generally it works pretty well. It's not a straight line. Translation language is sometimes a little bit different, but I think when people think of the military, they tend to think of these terribly kind of structured and rigid, they do rigid systems, and it's designed to be completely the opposite.
[00:19:42] Right. It's designed to be entirely in very resilient under pressure and very independent. Admiral don't tell captains what to do, captains don't tell their engineers what to do.
[00:19:53] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:53] David: They're all trained, they know what to do, and they just get on and do it and work as a team and, and when, you know, when some of the team is disturbed [00:20:00] or damaged others step and to, to, to, to make sure it continues to work.
[00:20:03] But that whole thing of having the right people in the right place with the right training at the right time, you know, with the right backgrounds has always been the way that I've delivered projects safely. Um, I've been, um, in, in a, in part fortunate, but I think as a result of a lot of thinking and hard work in all of my construction projects, I've never had any serious injuries at all years of rail projects without a loss of time injury, which was quite extraordinary, particularly 15 years ago in Australia.
[00:20:31] And that came back again to military mil military organisation, making sure that the supervisors at site knew exactly what to do. They had enough time to plan. Um, I was reading Tim Parker on high speed rail saying, you should spend twice as long planning as building. Yeah. Or worse to that effect.
[00:20:46] Absolutely. Right. Tim Parker. Yeah. You've got to put the time and the planning in Martin Place. We spent three years designing that thing before we put a pick in the ground.
[00:20:54] Deb: Absolutely.
[00:20:54] David: Um, and we had the builder on board for a year of that. Again, these are very good military [00:21:00] precedents.
[00:21:00] Deb: You gave them the outcome, you told them what the expectations were, and you allowed their experts to lead you.
[00:21:06] David: Well, in many ways we worked together. On what? On the finer detail. Yes. The outcomes were already set, but the finer detail we were able to work through.
[00:21:13] Deb: Mm.
[00:21:13] David: I guess the, the most important thing here in leadership is to be, is to be ethical. Is to be a good human. If you're a good human, people will do a whole lot of things for you.
[00:21:24] Deb: They will.
[00:21:24] David: That they won't if you're not a very nice person.
[00:21:27] Deb: Absolutely. You're involved in numerous things at the moment. You are literally wearing multiple hats.
[00:21:34] David: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:34] Deb: What are you finding all of the endeavours at the moment are having in common?
[00:21:38] David: I get asked that question an awful lot of the time.
[00:21:41] Deb: Do you, 'cause it seems like your career at the moment is a very disparate bunch of things, but it's not.
[00:21:45] David: No. You brought, you actually mentioned it in the introduction. It's that translation interface role that I ha, that I have always enjoyed being at. I enjoy being at the interface between different, important pieces of Australia that [00:22:00] don't necessarily work well together or haven't worked well together or don't really understand each other's language, but together can be incredibly powerful.
[00:22:08] Mm-hmm.
[00:22:08] Um, but it is exactly that translational piece and finding solutions that work for different parties to create a really great outcome.
[00:22:17] Mm-hmm.
[00:22:17] Working with, uh, the uk uh, nuclear industry to su to come and build capability and capacity in Australia is, is a lot around translation.
[00:22:27] Hmm.
[00:22:27] Not just opening doors, but ensuring that people around the table already know what each other are, are, are thinking clear outcomes, clear strategies, um, for disparate groups to try and bring them together as well as, you know, the not for not-for-profit sector, it's the same, same thing.
[00:22:45] You're very much working in areas where people who don't normally meet each other meet, but they meet for purpose. Um, and the results are generally excellent. So I have a, I have a very fun life. I have many things to do every day, [00:23:00] but, and, and not many of them are terribly, um, similar, um, in terms of maybe sectors or, you know, maybe the technicalities, but the principles are all the same.
[00:23:09] Bringing people together around a very, very clear outcomes and then helping everyone come for that strategy, uh, and leadership piece.
[00:23:17] Deb: You wore one hat, or you have worn it, I'm not sure if you're still wearing it. In relation to modern methods of construction, are you still wearing that hat? Excellent.
[00:23:25] Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, lots and lots of talk about productivity in the construction space. Lots of questions coming up on tenders in relation to, you know, can you guarantee capacity and delivery and productivity given supply chain constraints and everything else. Um, can you tell us a little bit about your experience on the MMC task force?
[00:23:44] David: Yeah, so I work really closely with the, um, with the CRC 4.0, which is the Construction Research Centre, um, which is a, a, a joint venture between, um, the industry and the federal government on doing building better,
[00:23:59] Deb: right?
[00:23:59] David: [00:24:00] Of all the things in the built environment, the residential house is not the most complex.
[00:24:04] But the supply chains and delivery methods of it are pretty convoluted. Um, there's a lot of regulatory, uh, differences between the states of Australia, which prevent easy movement of trades and so on. Um, but ultimately, um, it's a very, very convoluted supply chain and a, and a and a very complex delivery, uh, pattern of arounds in, in New South Wales, for example, 75,000 different builders.
[00:24:30] Deb: Wow.
[00:24:31] David: The challenge here is how do you, uh, create, um, a supply chain, um, and a delivery that doesn't seek to do something wildly different from what we're doing now? Uses the same people, uh, uses the same supply chains, but just uses them a little bit differently. That's really where CRC are, are leading in that space, and we are working with them, uh, to, to weaponize that almost through, uh, a scale application of a new financial model.
[00:24:58] But really what we're looking to do [00:25:00] here is, is, is standardise a lot of things which are unstandard at the moment. Mm. And therefore allow Australian businesses, uh, to, uh, scale up, um, or, or play in the building supply chains in ways that they haven't been able to before because it's been too diffuse.
[00:25:17] Making buildings from less parts is number one thing is great. Making them from parts that are also manufacturable by people who haven't necessarily always been in the housing market before is also useful if you want to scale up. Um, I think it's all very possible. I think there've been a lot of very, uh, well-meaning and highly invested in, uh, starts within what we used to call modular.
[00:25:41] Um, and there was a place for that in the Australian market. I think there's a really, uh, big case for it in government buildings, uh, rural and remote prop buildings. We use a lot of this technology already in agri culture.
[00:25:55] Deb: Mm.
[00:25:55] David: Um, and in non-human buildings, you know, like
[00:25:59] Deb: buildings, but we're, we're seeing it [00:26:00] transfer into transport infrastructure.
[00:26:03] David: It'll, it'll be everywhere soon. It, it suits itself a lot to the way that design's going with advanced, uh, automated designs and help in that area as well. I'm actually quite bullish about it. I think we're at a, a turning point. I think we kind of have to be, but I do think we need to not forget the little business in this, right?
[00:26:22] Deb: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:26:23] David: Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Make sure that you bring industry with you.
[00:26:29] Deb: Build
[00:26:29] David: the capability
[00:26:30] Deb: and capacity of that industry.
[00:26:32] David: Absolutely right. And do it in a stepped way that doesn't, isn't too binary that says this entire way of doing things is wrong. We're going to do it with this one.
[00:26:41] Because I think that's the way that we continually try and take two steps where we should take one
[00:26:46] Deb: Yes.
[00:26:47] David: And then come back to one again.
[00:26:49] Deb: Yeah.
[00:26:49] David: So I think stepping forward, um. Gently, purposefully and bringing the industry with us in a way that they can obviously see the benefits to their own [00:27:00] productivity, but allowing them to make earned value outta buildings still.
[00:27:04] Deb: Yep.
[00:27:05] David: I think the idea of just lots of mega factories making houses, uh, like cars is probably a long way away. And we may for other reasons find it, it's not beneficial.
[00:27:17] Deb: Yeah. You've been involved in lots of exciting work, amazing work outcomes oriented work. What are you most excited about in the next little while?
[00:27:27] David: Australia The world, spending different things on different things. At the moment, we have worked together through one of the largest transport infrastructure booms that Australia has seen, and that will continue, but probably not quite at the level that we saw through the last 15 years. I think that's reasonable to say.
[00:27:47] But others rise data centres. Of course, there's a lot of work to be done there. Um, not only in providing the, uh, data storage that the new world needs, but [00:28:00] also to start designing in social licence, uh, community benefits, um, better productivity, um, from an energy usage perspective or all of those things.
[00:28:12] Look to me like enormous opportunity for Australia to lead and for Australian businesses to lead. I think we need to, I think we need to bring community with us on, on that area. But it is a huge opportunity. It's a huge opportunity now in terms of the investment coming in. It's the second huge opportunity to do it better in the next generation of, of data.
[00:28:33] This defence, of course, not the most popular subject for most taxpayers to see their dollar go to, but in the world that we live in, it's absolutely essential that we get this right and we get this right now. So we need to get, bring the right leadership, um, to the civilian resilience side of the national defence.
[00:28:52] And that's not all planes in the air. That goes to a lot deeper, it goes to, uh, technical resilience in our key infrastructure. It goes to [00:29:00] cyber resilience, it goes to community resilience and so on. So these things are necessary and in a way make me excited. 'cause if you play it right, we'll have a stronger, better Australia at the end of it.
[00:29:12] We're going to move away from just being the mining and farming, uh, economy, expect that's where the money's going to get spent. And that's exciting.
[00:29:20] Deb: Well, I can't thank you enough, Mr. Harding, for being here. I have no doubt there are incredibly exciting opportunities ahead. I hope that you and I will get to work on one of them together and I can't thank you enough for being here, um, and contributing to the podcast today.
[00:29:35] Thanks
[00:29:35] David: so much, Deb, and can't wait to work on the next project with you too. Thank you.
