From three losses to a $1.6M council panel.

In 18 months, Macarthur Earthworks had submitted three direct council tenders — a road maintenance panel, a stormwater upgrade, and a minor earthworks contract. All three lost. Informal feedback put the company’s non-price scores at around 6 to 6.5 out of 10 — consistent with research finding that a compliant, boilerplate submission typically scores only 4 out of 10, and that demonstrating genuine understanding is the threshold for competitive scoring.¹ The weaknesses were consistent across all three:

• The capability statement was a company brochure. Six pages of history and plant list, with no mapping of past projects to the tender’s requirements, no quantified evidence, and no references tied to comparable scope.
• The methodology was largely reused. Roughly 70% copied submission-to-submission with only the project name changed — no site-specific sequencing, no real risk identification, no alignment to the construction program.
• Aboriginal Participation and social procurement were underdeveloped. The most recent response reportedly scored in the “poor” band — no formal Aboriginal Participation Plan, no Supply Nation-certified relationships, no quantified local or apprentice commitments.
• The time cost was unsustainable. Luke wrote each submission himself — ~40–45 hours per tender on top of running the business. Across three losses, roughly 130 hours of owner time with no return.

The Liverpool City Council Civil Works Panel was, in Luke’s words, the company’s last shot at the direct council market: a three-year arrangement covering earthworks and bulk excavation up to $500,000 per work order, with about four contractors to be appointed and aggregate panel value near $6.4 million.

Aboriginal and social procurement was reframed from a compliance obligation into a competitive scoring lever. The NSW Aboriginal Procurement Policy targets 3% of contracts by value to Aboriginal-owned businesses,² and the Aboriginal Participation in Construction Policy requires measurable Aboriginal Participation Plans on eligible projects.³ Councils increasingly mirror these in their own frameworks.⁴ The approach was not a generic commitment — it was a plan the company could genuinely deliver and quantify:

• A Supply Nation-certified supplier relationship. TenderBuilt introduced an Aboriginal-owned plant hire supplier and a supply agreement was executed before close, committing a minimum 3% of plant hire spend across the term — mirroring the NSW APP target.⁵
• Formalised apprentice & training commitments. Two civil apprentices across the term, targeting one Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, structured around the NSW civil construction traineeship pathway.⁶
• A quantified local engagement commitment. A 65% local spend commitment within the Liverpool LGA — subcontractors, plant hire, consumables, suppliers — backed by a register of prospective local suppliers.
• Measurable KPIs and reporting. Each commitment backed by quarterly reporting to Council with named accountabilities,⁷ signalling a plan that was operational, not cosmetic.

The pattern isn’t unusual. Capable contractors with strong private-sector records frequently score mid-pack on their first direct government submissions because their tender documents are pitched at the wrong reader. A capability statement that reads like a brochure, a reused methodology, and a generic social procurement response will reliably score around 5 or 6 out of 10.¹ Moving to the competitive 8+ range takes project-specific evidence, measurable commitments, and a methodology that shows genuine understanding of the site and client.

For civil SMEs bidding between $50,000 and $2 million across NSW, QLD and VIC, the highest-leverage investment is usually not writing more tenders. It’s rebuilding the response framework itself — once — so every future submission starts from a stronger baseline.