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13 Sep 2024, by Amy Sarcevic
Of a $2.68 billion budget package for roads, rail and transport, New Zealand’s rail sector is set to receive hundreds of millions over the next four years, to maintain, upgrade, and deliver new networks.
However, with roads taking the lion’s share of funds at $1billion – and with a lack of bipartisan support for rail – how certain is the sector’s future pipeline of work, and what does this mean for industry stakeholders?
Anthony McFadden of John Holland is concerned a perceived lack of future demand could have long term impact, with droves of workers – and their technical expertise – vacating the industry. He argues that pipeline sustainability should be front of mind for policy makers.
“Once the talent has gone, it’s not easy to get back. Then, if rail picks up steam again in the future, there won’t be enough workers to fulfil projects – and especially not highly qualified workers,” he said, ahead of the NZ Rail Conference.
Compromising safety and performance
This concern is not a new one for rail, which has experienced a stop-and-go pipeline over the past decade. In turn, annual staff turnover has exceeded the national average of 16 to 51 percent.
“Turnover certainly seems to be at an unsustainable level,” McFadden said.
“I can only imagine it getting worse as the pipeline of work evaporates.”
A knock-on effect of this could be a reduction in rail performance and safety outcomes, McFadden said.
“If you are trying to reassemble a new workforce from scratch every time a project kicks off, you will naturally have to poach people from other sectors. And when you do that, you introduce risks.
“Rail is quite different to civil engineering, for example, so if your new workforce has that background – and no rail experience – they will need to develop a new technical and OHS skillset.
“In the meantime, there could be a reduction in productivity, efficiency and safety.”
Government support is essential
While rail upgrades are still being progressed with support from the 2024 budget, Mr McFadden would like to see greater bipartisan support for the sector.
“We need a steady environment that people can entrust their careers to – and this all starts with how rail is prioritised, politically.
“With political backing, key clients can work with industry to map out pipelines that smooth out the peaks and troughs of work,” he said.
In addition, McFadden would like to see greater collaboration between key stakeholders to ensure work continuity.
“A mature industry approach, with input from the likes of KiwiRail, could be all we need to ensure a steady stream of projects of various scales across the industry,” he said.
“If we thought about how we could deliver smaller/medium projects under collaborative longer term programs of works – rather than individual “project-by-project” arrangements – then the critical rail skillset is maintained within the sector and will feed into major projects as they arise.
“This would enhance rail further making it an even more attractive career proposition.”
Further insight
Sharing more views on how to protect the future of rail, Anthony McFadden will present at the upcoming NZ Rail Conference, hosted by Informa Connect.
This year’s event will be held 16-17 October at the Aotea Centre Auckland.
About Anthony McFadden
Anthony McFadden (BEng – Civil) is an experienced construction professional with more than twenty years’ experience working in collaborative contracting environments.
During this time, he has held senior management and operational roles on a variety of complex large scale civil construction, rail, tunnelling and water sector contracts across New Zealand and Australia.
In his current role as General Manager for John Holland’s rail business in New Zealand, NSW, QLD and ACT, he is responsible for the delivery of a portfolio of rail projects ranging in value from a few million through to $1bn.
Informa Connect Australia is the nation's leading event organiser. Our events comprise of large scale exhibitions, industry conferences and highly specialised corporate training.
