We wrote a briefing on Queensland in which the central problem for a civil SME was getting paperwork-ready before a record wave of work arrived. This is the opposite briefing. In Victoria the wave has already broken, and the central problem is what a small civil contractor does on the downslope of the largest state infrastructure program in Australian history.
That is not editorialising. It is in the Budget papers. Victoria’s 2026–27 State Capital Program states that government infrastructure investment peaked at $24.2 billion in 2023–24, is projected at $21.4 billion for 2025–26, and will moderate to $15.3 billion by 2029–30, averaging $16.5 billion a year over the budget and forward estimates.[1] That is a reduction of roughly 37 per cent from peak to 2029–30, disclosed by the government itself and framed as deliberate — the papers describe a sustainable pipeline that will continue to provide certainty to the construction industry.[1]
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia put it less diplomatically, describing the Budget as confirmation that Victoria is now well and truly descending into an infrastructure funding valley.[2]
A contracting market is not a market without work — there is still $181 billion of new and existing capital projects under way in Victoria.[1] But it is a market with different rules, and the strategies that worked on the way up will actively hurt a contractor on the way down. This briefing sets out what remains, where the access points are, and what changes about positioning when the pipeline is shrinking. Read it alongside our briefing on Brisbane 2032 and Queensland’s civil contractors if you operate across the border, because the two states now require genuinely different plans.
The peak has passed, and the numbers are official
The Big Build delivered. That is the necessary starting point, because the completion of the program is the direct cause of the decline. As at the 2026–27 Budget:
- The Metro Tunnel is open, with five new stations enabling more services on the Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines.[3]
- The West Gate Tunnel is open, carrying traffic between the western suburbs and the city.[3]
- 88 level crossings have been removed, with a further eight scheduled for removal in 2026. Over the past decade the Level Crossing Removal Project has absorbed more than 110 million hours of work and supported close to 6,000 workers at peak construction.[3][1]
- 121 new schools have opened since 2017, with two more on track, delivering on a commitment to build 100 new schools by 2026.[3][1]
Read those four bullets as a civil contractor rather than as a commuter. Every one of them describes a work program that has ended or is ending. Close to 6,000 workers at peak on level crossings alone; 88 sites completed with eight remaining. The labour, plant and subcontract demand that program generated is not being replaced by an equivalent program, and that is what the $24.2 billion to $15.3 billion trajectory is measuring.
What the 2026–27 Budget added instead was modest and targeted: $4.4 billion in total estimated investment for new capital in critical areas including new and upgraded schools, new trains, maintaining the state’s road and rail networks, and essential health and emergency services.[1] Notable individual items include $674 million for 25 additional trains to be built in Ballarat and $124 million to progress environmental approvals and procurement for the Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal at the Port of Hastings in support of the offshore wind industry.[3][1]
Note the phrase “maintaining the state’s road and rail networks”. In a valley, maintenance and renewal become a larger proportion of a smaller pie — and that is the part of the market most accessible to an SME.
What an infrastructure valley does to a market
The consequences of a declining pipeline are predictable, and naming them is more useful than pretending otherwise. Five things happen, and they happen in sequence.
| Effect | What it looks like on the ground | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Tier-one contractors move down-market | Firms built for $500 million programs bid $30 million programs; firms built for $30 million bid $3 million | Your competitive set gets larger and better-resourced at every value band. The field on a $1.5 million council job deepens |
| Margins compress | More bidders per opportunity, and bidders with idle capacity to absorb | Price discipline becomes existential rather than aspirational. Pricing to keep crews busy is how contractors fail in a valley |
| Access channels consolidate | Agencies rationalise panels, bundle scopes and move to fewer, larger, performance-based contracts | Direct head-contract access narrows; subcontract access to the channel holder becomes the route |
| Renewal share rises | Maintenance, renewal and asset management become a larger proportion of a smaller program | Good news for SMEs — this is the work you are structurally suited to |
| Capacity exits | Contractors close, consolidate or leave the state; plant and people redistribute | Survivors face a better market on the far side. Getting to the far side is the strategy |
The third row is the one Victorian contractors are living through right now, and the following two sections deal with it specifically, because both of the state’s principal road delivery channels have restructured.
One further observation from industry. The Civil Contractors Federation Victoria has noted that workforce shortage has been cited as a driver for the slowing of projects, and has argued that the response should include better and more cost-effective delivery models — pointing specifically to the collaborative contracting approach used on the state’s major road program.[4] That is worth reading carefully. If capacity constraint rather than pure fiscal constraint is part of what is flattening the pipeline, then a contractor who can credibly demonstrate delivery capacity and productivity is arguing into a receptive audience.
The debt constraint, and why it will not lift quickly
Any assessment of whether the valley is temporary has to deal with the balance sheet, because that is what determines the shape of the recovery.
Victoria’s non-financial public sector net debt stood at $163.7 billion at the 2025–26 year-end estimate, up from $49.7 billion in 2019–20 — an increase of roughly 230 per cent driven by the pandemic response, emergency stimulus and the Big Build program itself. It is forecast to reach approximately $177 billion by 2028–29 as the major infrastructure pipeline completes, with debt as a share of gross state product projected to peak at around 34 per cent in 2027–28 before declining. Annual interest on that debt runs at approximately $6.8 billion.[5] Industry analysis of the same Budget notes projections of net debt reaching $199.3 billion by 2029–30.[6]
The 2026–27 Budget did record Victoria’s first operating surplus since 2018–19, at $0.8 billion, turning around a $2.5 billion deficit in 2025–26.[5] That is genuine fiscal repair. But note the mechanism: the surplus is an operating result, while the state continues to borrow to fund a net capital investment programme of around $16 billion in 2026–27.[5] Reducing capital investment is one of the levers producing the improvement.
The planning implication for a contractor is straightforward and unwelcome. The decline in Victorian infrastructure investment is structural rather than cyclical, and the timeline for reversal is measured in years rather than budget cycles. Debt as a share of the economy is not projected to begin falling until after 2027–28, and capital expenditure reduction is part of how that happens. A business plan that assumes Victorian volumes return to 2023–24 levels within three years is not supported by the state’s own forward estimates.
What is actually left in the pipeline
A valley is not a desert. The remaining program is substantial, and it is worth being precise about which parts an SME can reach.
| What remains | Status | Realistic SME access |
|---|---|---|
| North East Link | In delivery, completing later this decade | Subcontract to the delivery consortia — utility works, drainage, public domain, reinstatement |
| Suburban Rail Loop East | In delivery, long horizon | Subcontract; precinct and enabling works |
| Level crossing removals — remaining sites | Eight further removals scheduled in 2026[3] | Subcontract, and a diminishing pool |
| Road and rail network maintenance | Explicitly funded in the 2026–27 Budget’s new capital allocation[1] | Accessible — but see the road maintenance contract restructure below |
| Schools, health and emergency services | Continuing, at reduced volume | Accessible — site civil, car parks, drainage, external works |
| Renewable energy and port infrastructure | $124 million to progress approvals and procurement for the Port of Hastings renewable energy terminal[1] | Emerging; long lead time; a genuine diversification direction |
| Council capital works | Continuing independent of the state cycle | The most accessible layer. See below |
Victoria also holds 25.2 per cent of the Commonwealth’s ten-year $85.3 billion Infrastructure Investment Program allocation to the states and territories — second only to Queensland at 31.1 per cent, and ahead of New South Wales at 20.3 per cent.[7] Federal co-funding is one of the more durable elements of the Victorian pipeline precisely because it is not on the state’s balance sheet.
VIDA Roads, the PDA and Panel 6
This section contains the single most useful piece of information in this briefing for a Victorian civil SME, and it is almost entirely unknown outside the firms already on the panel.
Victoria’s major road projects are delivered under the Program Delivery Approach, a model that combines elements of alliance and design-and-construct contracting. Projects are progressively awarded to pre-qualified contractors based on capability, capacity, past performance and ability to deliver value-for-money solutions. The mechanism is a panel structure: projects are awarded to contractors on one of six panels forming the VIDA Roads Construction Panel, with a parallel Design Panel.[8]
Two features matter enormously and are easy to miss.
First, the panels are not closed. Registrations of interest to receive an application pack for the VIDA Roads Construction and Design Panels closed at 2pm on Friday 6 February 2026 — but the published guidance states there is an ongoing opportunity for new contractors and designers to join these panels.[8] A contractor who concluded they had missed the window should check the current position directly rather than waiting for a refresh that may not be how the panel operates.
Second, Panel 6 is the SME tier, and it works differently from the others. Payment across the PDA model generally runs through an Incentivised Target Cost mechanism, which reimburses direct costs and applies cost and non-cost incentives. For Panel 6, however, the Medium Works Contract is based on risk-sharing principles and on a lump sum or schedule of rates payment regime.[8]
That distinction is the whole reason an SME can participate. An Incentivised Target Cost arrangement requires open-book cost reporting, sophisticated cost control systems and the commercial infrastructure to administer a target-cost regime — capability most contractors in the $50,000 to $2 million band simply do not have. A lump sum or schedule of rates regime is the commercial model those contractors already run. If you have looked at the PDA model and concluded it was beyond you, you may have been looking at the wrong panel.
One structural note on how design works under this model. A designer can be engaged directly, but is most commonly engaged by the contractor under a subcontract agreement as in a classic design-and-construct arrangement, with the appointment made after award and before the Project Development Phase so the designer can work collaboratively with the contractor and the agency.[8] That transfers design responsibility to you, with consequences for professional indemnity cover — see our guide to insurance requirements for government civil tenders.
For the wider mechanics of how panel appointment converts into work, see our guide to winning work off panels and standing offers. The principle applies here with full force: appointment to Panel 6 is eligibility, not entitlement.
The road maintenance contract that reset in July 2026
The second channel restructure is more recent and more consequential for small contractors, because it affects the maintenance work that a valley makes relatively more important.
The Victorian Road Maintenance Contract is a four-year arrangement of the Department of Transport and Planning’s Transport Services Division, commencing July 2026. It manages arterial road maintenance across Victoria through a single, performance-based contract model for each region, bringing together inspection and planning, hazard management, defect rectification, emergency response and minor capital works to support consistent network performance. Regional packages are held by large service contractors — one provider is delivering the Grampians and Eastern Metropolitan regions.[9]
Read the scope inclusions again: defect rectification, emergency response and minor capital works. That is the SME civil work on the arterial network, and it now sits inside a regional performance-based contract held by a single provider rather than being tendered as discrete packages.
The strategic consequence is a channel shift, and it happened this month. For a small Victorian civil contractor, access to arterial road maintenance work is now principally via subcontract to the VRMC holder in your region, not via direct tender to the department. Which means:
- Identify the VRMC holder for each region you operate in, and treat that firm as a client rather than a competitor.
- Get onto their subcontractor register early in the contract term. Supply chains for a four-year performance-based contract are assembled at the start, and a contractor who makes contact in year three is joining a settled panel.
- Understand what they are being measured on. A performance-based contract makes the holder accountable for network outcomes and response times, which means they value subcontractors who are reliable and fast far more than subcontractors who are marginally cheaper.
- Use the policy obligations. VRMC delivery carries compliance obligations under Local Jobs First, the Social Procurement Framework, Recycled First and the Fair Jobs Code, with explicit engagement with local communities and suppliers including opportunities for local participation and social benefit suppliers.[9] If you are a local business in a region, or hold social enterprise or Aboriginal business status, those obligations are a lever — the holder needs local and social procurement outcomes to satisfy its own contract.
That last point deserves emphasis because it inverts the usual dynamic. Under a policy-laden head contract, a local SME is not asking for a favour. It is offering the head contractor something the head contractor is contractually required to demonstrate.
The council layer and the threshold that does not exist
Council capital works are the most accessible layer of the Victorian market and the least affected by the state’s fiscal position, because councils fund from rates, reserves, developer contributions and grants rather than from state capital.
Victoria is unusual, however, in how council procurement is regulated, and getting this wrong wastes real effort. There is no state-wide public tender threshold. Section 186 of the Local Government Act 1989, which set the financial thresholds above which councils had to seek public tenders, was repealed on 1 July 2021. Sections 108 and 109 of the Local Government Act 2020 replaced it with a principles-based framework and no pre-specified financial thresholds. Instead, every council must prepare, adopt and comply with a Procurement Policy stating the contract value above which it must invite a tender or seek an expression of interest, the criteria it uses to evaluate value for money, how it will seek collaboration with other councils and public bodies, and the conditions under which it may purchase without a public tender.[10]
The practical instruction: you cannot know whether a Victorian council’s next $280,000 drainage renewal will be advertised or quoted without reading that council’s Procurement Policy. Published policies vary in the threshold they set. The policy is a public document, it is usually a single PDF on the council’s website, and reading it for each of your target councils is an hour that tells you where your work will actually appear.
Two further features work in an organised contractor’s favour. Councils appoint their own supplier panels after a publicly advertised tender process, and the mandatory collaboration provision creates standing pressure toward aggregated buying through bodies such as MAV Procurement and Procurement Australia.[10] Our guides to winning work off panels and standing offers and to Buying for Victoria cover both routes.
The four policy gates every Victorian bid must clear
Victoria layers more procurement policy onto a bid than any other state, and in a contracting market that is genuinely double-edged: it is more work, and it is also where a small local contractor can beat a larger interstate one.
| Policy | What it asks of a bid | Where an SME has an advantage |
|---|---|---|
| Local Jobs First | Local content commitments and reporting on Victorian industry participation | A Victorian SME with a local workforce and local supply chain is the intended beneficiary |
| Social Procurement Framework | Social and sustainable outcomes across defined objectives | Genuine local employment, apprenticeships and social enterprise engagement are easier to evidence at small scale than to manufacture at large scale |
| Recycled First | Demonstrated use of recycled and reused materials | Requires supply chain relationships rather than capital — achievable for a small contractor |
| Fair Jobs Code | Compliance with employment standards and obligations | Neutral to positive for a compliant employer; a real barrier for anyone with a poor record |
All four appear as compliance obligations in Victorian road maintenance delivery, which indicates how far down the supply chain they flow.[9] Treat them as reusable content: our guide to building a tender content library covers how to hold this material so it is not rewritten under deadline every time, and our guide to social and Indigenous procurement covers the substance in detail.
One security note that belongs here because it is specific to Victorian contractors and currently live. The Victorian Government has published a supplier phishing alert warning that cybercriminals are using publicly available procurement information to impersonate Victorian Government officials and send personalised phishing emails designed to extract sensitive information, which may be used to commit business email compromise or invoice fraud.[11] The exposure follows directly from procurement transparency: if your award is published on a contract register, your details are available to whoever reads it. Verify payment detail changes through a known contact rather than by replying to the email requesting them.
The materials and workforce constraint
A declining pipeline does not automatically resolve input constraints, and in Victoria two remain live.
On materials, Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia has responded to the 2026–27 Budget by arguing that maintaining a visible pipeline of the announced scale presents a clear delivery risk without strong fiscal discipline and efficient project delivery, and has called for a coordinated whole-of-government Heavy Construction Materials Plan. Analysis cited by the association puts the cement, concrete and aggregates industry’s contribution at $3.17 billion of Victorian gross state product, supporting more than 15,600 jobs, and stresses that timely and affordable access to construction materials is critical to maintaining project timelines and controlling costs.[6]
The commercial translation for a contractor pricing work: a declining pipeline is not a reason to assume materials cost and availability risk has gone away. Quarry supply, haulage distance and cement availability remain project-specific risks, and a schedule of rates submitted for a multi-year panel term needs an escalation position that reflects that. This is exactly the risk our guide to concrete works tenders treats in depth, and our guide to pricing strategies for government tenders deals with how to hold margin when the field deepens.
On workforce, the situation is genuinely counter-intuitive. Workforce shortage has been cited as a driver for the slowing of projects.[4] A contractor might reasonably expect a shrinking pipeline to release labour and ease that shortage — and over time it should. In the near term, the more likely pattern is redistribution rather than release, as workers move from completing major projects toward whatever remains, and as some leave the state or the industry entirely. Retention of a capable crew through a valley is a strategic asset, not an overhead, because the contractors who emerge with their people intact face a thinner field on the far side.
Positioning for a contracting market
The strategies that build a business in an expanding market are frequently the ones that destroy it in a contracting one. Six positions worth taking deliberately.
- Do not buy work. The instinct in a valley is to price to keep crews and plant busy. That converts a revenue problem into a solvency problem, because a job won below cost consumes working capital for its whole duration. If you take one thing from this briefing, take this one.
- Move toward renewal and maintenance, not away from it. Renewal is a rising share of a falling program. It is smaller, more repetitive and rate-based — which is a description of what an SME is good at, and what a tier-one contractor moving down-market is bad at.
- Secure channel positions rather than chasing projects. In a consolidating market the panel appointment, the approved contractor list place and the head contractor relationship are worth more than any individual bid. Access is the scarce asset.
- Get on the subcontractor registers of the channel holders now. The VRMC holders and the VIDA Roads panel members are assembling supply chains for multi-year terms. Timing matters more than it usually does.
- Use the policy obligations as a wedge. Local Jobs First, social procurement and Recycled First obligations flow down. A local, compliant SME is not asking for work — it is supplying an outcome the head contractor must demonstrate.
- Be honest in go/no-go decisions, and expect to decline more. A deeper field means lower win rates, which means bid costs per win rise. Discipline about which bids to enter matters more in a valley than in a boom. Our go/no-go framework is the instrument for this.
There is a seventh option that deserves naming without recommendation: geographic diversification. Queensland is running a record pipeline, and the cross-border route is real. It is also expensive — separate prequalification, separate panels, separate workers compensation arrangements, mobilisation and accommodation cost, and no local relationships. It works for contractors with the balance sheet to fund a two-year establishment period and fails for those without it. Judge it on your own numbers, not on the size of the Queensland program.
The readiness checklist
In priority order for a Victorian civil SME through the valley.
- Check the current intake position for the VIDA Roads Construction Panel, specifically Panel 6. The Medium Works Contract on Panel 6 uses lump sum or schedule of rates rather than a target-cost regime, and the published guidance describes an ongoing opportunity to join.[8]
- Identify the Victorian Road Maintenance Contract holder for every region you work in, and get onto their subcontractor register while the supply chain is still forming.
- Read the Procurement Policy of each target council. In Victoria this is the only way to know the tender threshold, because there is no statutory one.
- Pursue council supplier panels and approved contractor lists in your operating radius, plus MAV Procurement or Procurement Australia where categories genuinely match.
- Build your Local Jobs First, Social Procurement Framework, Recycled First and Fair Jobs Code content once, properly, and hold it as reusable library content.
- Review every rate schedule you have on foot for its escalation mechanism, and fix your position on materials risk before submitting another.
- Tighten the go/no-go discipline and accept a lower bid volume with a higher hit rate.
- Protect working capital. In a compressing market, payment discipline is survival. Our guide to security of payment covers the claim calendar that protects cashflow.
- Keep your crew. Capability is the asset that determines who is still trading on the far side.
- Verify payment detail changes out of band, given the live supplier phishing campaign targeting Victorian government contractors.[11]
What is still uncertain
Several things in this briefing are firmer than others, and the difference matters.
- Firm: the trajectory. The $24.2 billion peak and the $15.3 billion 2029–30 projection are the government’s own figures in its own Budget papers.[1] This is not an industry forecast that might be pessimistic.
- Less firm: what happens after 2029–30. Debt as a share of the economy is projected to peak in 2027–28 and decline thereafter, which creates fiscal room in the 2030s. Whether that room is spent on infrastructure is a political question nobody can answer now.
- Uncertain: the pace of tier-one down-market movement, and therefore how quickly the field deepens at SME value bands. It is happening; the rate is not measurable from public sources.
- Uncertain: how the VRMC regional arrangements will handle subcontract engagement in practice. The contract structure is published; the supply chain behaviour of each regional holder is not, and will differ.
- Uncertain: whether the workforce constraint eases, and how fast. Redistribution and exit are both occurring, and the net effect on availability and wage cost is not yet visible.
- Live: panel intake positions, contract holders, policy requirements and thresholds all change. Every one of them should be verified directly before you plan around it.
The conclusion we would offer a Victorian civil contractor is unglamorous. This is a market to be survived intelligently rather than exploited, for roughly the rest of this decade. The two concrete actions worth taking this month are checking the VIDA Roads Panel 6 intake position and making contact with the road maintenance contract holder in your region — both because they are channel positions, and channel positions are what a contracting market allocates scarcity to.
All figures, programs, contract arrangements and examples in this briefing are illustrative and drawn from published sources at the date of writing. Budget projections, panel arrangements, contract holders and policy requirements change; confirm the current position against the relevant agency or Budget papers before relying on any figure here. Nothing in this briefing is financial advice.
Getting onto the register and bidding the work that follows are two different jobs — see our tender writing services in Victoria.
This guide is general information for Australian civil construction businesses and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Pipeline values, project timing and delivery models are published by government and revised regularly, and a project appearing in a pipeline is not a commitment to tender it. Treat forward estimates as indicative before you commit capacity or capital.
- Victorian Government — Victorian Budget 2026/27, Budget Paper No. 4: State Capital Program (government infrastructure investment peaked at $24.2 billion in 2023-24; GII is projected to be $21.4 billion for 2025-26 and to moderate to $15.3 billion by 2029-30, averaging $16.5 billion a year over the budget and forward estimates; a sustainable pipeline of infrastructure projects will continue to provide certainty to the construction industry and maintain a steady flow of investment; there is a total of $181 billion in new and existing capital projects under way; the 2026-27 Budget includes $4.4 billion total estimated investment for targeted new capital investment in critical areas including new and upgraded schools, new trains, maintaining the State’s road and rail networks, and essential health and emergency services; the Government has delivered on its commitment to build 100 new schools by 2026; over the past decade more than 110 million hours have been worked on level crossing removals, supporting job creation for close to 6,000 workers during peak construction; funding of $124 million is provided to progress environmental approval activities and the procurement process to develop the Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal at the Port of Hastings in support of Victoria’s offshore wind industry). ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
- Infrastructure Partnerships Australia — commentary on the 2026–27 Victorian Budget, characterising it as confirmation that Victoria is now well and truly descending into an infrastructure funding valley, while describing the Budget as taking sensible steps to fix the fiscal position. ↩
- Victorian Government — Victorian Budget 26/27: Government infrastructure investment (the Metro Tunnel is open with 5 new stations enabling more frequent and reliable services for communities on the Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines; the West Gate Tunnel is saving drivers time on trips between the western suburbs and the city while taking trucks off local roads; the Victorian Government has removed 88 level crossings with a further 8 set to be removed in 2026; 121 new schools have been delivered since 2017 with 2 more on track to open next year; the new Footscray Hospital and redeveloped Frankston Hospital are open; the Budget delivers $674 million for 25 additional trains built by local workers in Ballarat). ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
- Civil Contractors Federation Victoria — State Budget commentary for the civil construction sector, noting that infrastructure spend is expected to fall from its peak, that workforce shortage has been stated as a driver for a slowing down of projects, and advocating better and more cost-effective delivery models including the collaborative contracting Program Delivery Approach used on the state’s major road program. CCF Victoria budget commentary is published across successive budget cycles; confirm which cycle a given statement relates to before relying on it. ↩ ↩
- Analysis of the Victorian 2026–27 Budget fiscal position drawing on Department of Treasury and Finance Budget Papers (Non-Financial Public Sector net debt stood at $163.7 billion at the 2025-26 year-end estimate, up from $49.7 billion in 2019-20, an increase of approximately 230 per cent driven by the pandemic response, emergency stimulus and the Big Build infrastructure program; NFPS net debt is forecast to reach approximately $177 billion by 2028-29 as the major infrastructure pipeline including North East Link, Suburban Rail Loop and school and hospital builds completes; debt as a share of gross state product is projected to peak at around 34 per cent in 2027-28 then decline, with debt expected to begin declining as a share of GSP from 2029 onwards as capital expenditure reduces and surpluses accumulate; annual interest on the debt costs approximately $6.8 billion; the 2026-27 Budget records an operating surplus of $0.8 billion, the first since 2018-19, turning around a $2.5 billion deficit in 2025-26; the state still borrows to fund its capital program, with net capital investment of approximately $16 billion in 2026-27). ↩ ↩ ↩
- Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia — response to the Victorian 2026–27 Budget (the Budget outlines a substantial $181 billion capital program of new and existing projects underway across transport, health, education and community infrastructure; CCAA notes Victoria’s net debt is projected to reach $199.3 billion by 2029-30; maintaining a visible pipeline of this scale presents a clear risk to delivery without strong fiscal discipline and a focus on efficient, cost-effective project delivery; analysis by Oxford Economics Australia puts the cement, concrete and aggregates industry’s contribution at $3.17 billion of Gross State Product supporting more than 15,600 jobs; CCAA calls for a coordinated whole-of-government Heavy Construction Materials Plan and stresses that ensuring timely and affordable access to construction materials will be critical to maintaining project timelines and controlling costs). ↩ ↩
- Reporting on the Commonwealth 2026–27 Budget infrastructure allocations — the Australian Government maintains a rolling infrastructure pipeline of more than $120 billion over ten years with short-term profile adjustments made in response to capacity constraints; total commitment to states and territories under the Infrastructure Investment Program over the next ten years has reached $85.3 billion, of which 31.1 per cent is allocated to Queensland, 25.2 per cent to Victoria, 20.3 per cent to New South Wales, 9.5 per cent to South Australia, 7.4 per cent to Western Australia, 3.3 per cent to the Northern Territory, 2.6 per cent to Tasmania and 0.8 per cent to the Australian Capital Territory. ↩
- Victoria’s Big Build — VIDA Roads: Program Delivery Approach (major road projects are progressively awarded to pre-qualified contractors using the Program Delivery Approach model, with projects awarded based on contractors’ capability, capacity, past performance and ability to deliver value-for-money solutions; construction and design companies were invited to join the VIDA Roads Construction and Design Panels to fast track procurement and get projects shovel ready sooner, and there is an ongoing opportunity for new contractors and designers to join these panels; registrations of interest to receive an Application Pack closed at 2pm on Friday 6 February 2026; the PDA approach features elements of the alliance and Design and Construct contracts; projects are awarded to contractors that are on one of six panels forming the VIDA Roads Construction Panel; payment is through an Incentivised Target Cost payment mechanism which reimburses direct costs and includes cost and non-cost incentives; for panel 6, the Medium Works Contract is based on risk-sharing principles and on a lump sum or schedule of rates payment regime; a designer can be engaged directly by VIDA Roads but is most commonly engaged by the contractor in a sub-contract agreement as in a classic D&C model, with the appointment made after award of the project and before the start of the Project Development Phase). ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
- Published description of the Victorian Road Maintenance Contract (Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, Transport Services Division; four years commencing July 2026; the VRMC is responsible for managing arterial road maintenance across Victoria through a single performance-based contract model for each region, bringing together inspection and planning, hazard management, defect rectification, emergency response and minor capital works to support consistent network performance and safety outcomes; one service provider is delivering these services for the Grampians and Eastern Metropolitan regions; delivery supports the Victorian Government’s circular economy and social procurement objectives through compliance with Local Jobs First, the Social Procurement Framework, Recycled First and Fair Jobs Code requirements, and engagement with local communities and suppliers including opportunities for local participation and social benefit suppliers). Regional contract holders and arrangements should be confirmed directly. ↩ ↩ ↩
- Local Government Act 2020 (Vic) s 108, and Maddocks analysis of the transition from the 1989 Act (s 186 of the Local Government Act 1989, which required councils to seek public tenders or expressions of interest where the estimated value of works and services exceeded certain financial thresholds, was repealed on 1 July 2021; ss 108 and 109 of the 2020 Act establish a new framework with no pre-specified financial thresholds; a Procurement Policy must include the contract value above which the Council must invite a tender or seek an expression of interest, a description of the criteria used to evaluate whether a proposed contract provides value for money, a description of how the Council will seek collaboration with other Councils and public bodies, the conditions under which the Council may purchase without inviting a public tender or expression of interest, and a description of the process for inviting one; the contract value included must not exceed the value prescribed by the regulations). Published Victorian council procurement policies further indicate that supplier panels may be appointed by a council after a publicly advertised tender process, and that councils may collaborate with other councils or use agents such as MAV Procurement or Procurement Australia. ↩ ↩
- Victorian Government tenders platform — supplier phishing alert (the Government is aware of an active phishing campaign targeting Victorian Government contractors and suppliers; cybercriminals are using publicly available procurement information to impersonate Victorian Government officials and send personalised phishing emails; these messages are designed to extract sensitive information and may be used to commit business email compromise or invoice fraud). ↩ ↩