SA 2021 – Advocacy, Collaboration & Events

7 December 2021

The ACA – SA has been active this year in a number of areas, including events, mental wellbeing, advocacy and consultation with other professional bodies.

Mandatory Vaccination & Fair Work

Tom Earls has provided detailed employment advice on mandatory vaccination and spoke at length with the SA Committee to fine-tune his advice to the broader ACA membership.

Work Health & Safety

With a number of practices requiring third-party JAS-ANZ certification for ongoing prequalification for government work, the ACA coordinated discussions with DIT and between practices to resolve some of the common questions on its implementation.

SA Construction Industry Forum

A new incarnation of the Construction Industry Forum was formed in 2021 with representatives from the MBA, subcontractors, ACA, AIA, Consult Australia and AILA. It has made significant progress in a number of areas.

The Construction Culture Initiative

The ACA is very supportive of discussions with the AIA and the MBA regarding the often toxic culture of the building industry. We believe there is an opportunity to change culture, mental wellbeing, work/life balance and procurement expectations, and it has been wonderful to be part of open and frank discussions about how the whole industry could do better.

Cascading Consultancy

The ACA has been actively pushing for clear guidelines for cascading consultancy agreements, including more consistency on terms and conditions for subconsultants and acceptable subconsultant agreements. We have finally had acceptance of the ACA subconsultancy agreement as a suitable method of engaging subconsultants.

Calculations of overheads & variations

We have made representations to both DIT and the Small Business Commissioner to ensure there are clear guidelines on margins, calculation of fee variations and disbursements including travel for Government work.

Professional Services Subcontract

The ACA – SA has funded an update of this popular agreement, which simplifies the back-to-back engagement of subconsultants.

CPD, National Registration Frameworks & Automatic Mutual Recognition

The ACA initiated a meeting with the Australian Institute of Architects, the Government Architect and the Surveyor General on impending changes to state legislation affecting architects. A regular meeting with these groups and the Architectural Practice Board of SA is now planned quarterly to deal with these issues.

AMWF & Events

SA has been fortunate to host a number of events including the Business of Design Lunch, several Mental Wellbeing Forums, meetings with Tom Earls of Fair Work Lawyers and of course the recent President’s Christmas Drinks.

AMWF SA has been working hard to continue the work we started at the beginning of 2021. Our vision to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing began in July with the launch of We Should Talk. This thought-provoking event gave us the opportunity to speak in-depth about mental health and wellbeing in our profession. For the 80 people who attended, panellists Dino Vrynios, Erin Crowden and Victoria Clarkson provided a very personal and insightful understanding of some of the pressures students and younger members of the profession can experience and what has helped them through difficult periods of their career.

This was followed up in September with a second We Should Talk event. The evening provided an engaging and informative conversation between our panel and the leaders and team members of architectural practices. A special thank you to our panel members Gabrielle Kelly, Anna Roussos, Tom Clarke, Ian Hore and moderator Dino Vrynios. The panel members openly shared their personal experiences and thoughts through their discussion and in answering questions from the audience.

To finish off the year we met on 30 November at Roxie’s on Grenfell Street for our annual President’s Christmas Drinks. SA & National President, John Held spoke to members about getting involved with the ACA and thanked the committee for its continued support and involvement.

Sponsors

We are thrilled to have had Roussos Recruitment as our SA State Sponsor for 2021. Anna Roussos has also been involved with the Architects Mental Wellbeing Forum in SA. She sponsored and presented at our second We Should Talk event in September. Thank you to Anna and the team for their continued support and input.

We would also like to thank Rondo, Event Sponsor for the Business of Design Lunch and Tom Clark from Workspace Commercial Furniture for supporting and presenting at the AMWF We Should Talk Event in September. We look forward to working with you both again in 2022.

Thanks

Special thanks to Executive Officer Sascha Byrne for her untiring enthusiasm and hard work, and the SA Committee for their wisdom and work to make this profession better.