Romilly Madew, CEO of Engineers Australia

Engineers Australia is the peak body for the engineering profession in Australia. The organisation has over 115,000 individual members and acts as the voice of the profession. Prior to this position, Romilly was Chief Executive Officer of Infrastructure Australia, a Federal Government Agency that provides research and advice to government, industry and the community on infrastructure investments and reforms.

Romilly Madew was awarded an Order of Australia in early 2019 in acknowledgment of her contribution to Australia’s sustainable building movement. She is recognised globally as a leader and advocate for change in the property and construction sector and is a vocal champion of diversity, Indigenous engagement, flexibility in the workplace, and women in sport. She is also active in Surf Life Saving and supporting Australia’s elite sportswomen through the Minerva Network, which she co-founded and is a Director.

 

AMT: You’ve started as CEO at Engineers Australia with a strong direction.  What do you see you’ve brought to the position in reflection on your prior appointments?

Romilly Madew: Way back before I started at Engineers Australia, I was at the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), which I started working at in 2005, and then took over as CEO in 2006. The GBCA created a rating tool for buildings and communities called Green Star. Each of the categories within the tool had a technical committee and the majority of those technical committee members were engineers. So my engagement with, and reliance on engineers really started back in those early days. Then I moved to Infrastructure Australia (IA) as CEO in 2019.  IA is the Federal Government’s independent infrastructure advisor. If you think of all our infrastructure projects, and there are so many in Australia, Infrastructure Australia considered both economic and social infrastructure, covering water, transport, energy, telecommunications, education, and healthcare.

Every single infrastructure project was reliant on an engineer for design, construction and operations in all its shapes and forms.

Secondly, I come from an industry membership-based background. I had previously worked at the Property Council of Australia then the Green Building Council of Australia, so I’d already come from a membership-based background. There were so many alignments with the work that I’ve done over the last 20 years to the work that I’m now doing at Engineers Australia.

AMT: So, are we going in the right direction?

RM:  Across sustainability, in pockets, we are, yes. In property and construction, we are very much moving in the right direction. There are a number of global benchmarks, which Australia has been leading for over 14 years. When you consider our office buildings, shopping centres, apartment buildings, and large residential communities, even our large-scale education facilities like universities. New South Wales healthcare and schools’ infrastructure, is world-leading. Of course, when you consider infrastructure, such as road, rail and ports, we see emerging levels of leadership.

AMT: Where do you see the focus of Engineers Australia in the rapidly changing economy, climate and workforce conditions shaking the world right now.

RM:  With the incoming Federal Government and the introduction to changes to climate change requirements, there will be an increased focus in responding to climate change. And the difference really is the asset class. When you consider property and construction, many listed property trusts are involved. They have shareholders saying they’re really not going to invest in properties that don’t have a sustainability strategy. It’s called a Green Dividend. However, when considering infrastructure, much of it is owned and built by the government. There is a disconnect there. All the states and territories have agreed to Net Zero by 2050, however, there’s been inconsistencies in how that’s been executed through state government procurement. It’s all well and good that our leaders say, yes, sign up to Net Zero by 2050, however, you need to see public servants acknowledging and implementing strategies to meet these targets. It needs to be embedded into the procurement of multi-million or multi-billion dollar infrastructure assets. With the change in Federal Government last year it’s been embedded within Infrastructure Australia’s legislation, for instance. All the states and territories are aligned with the Federal Government for a lot of their funding. And that’ll start filtering and cascading through. But infrastructure is very much following the path of property and construction.

Another priority for Engineers Australia is working with industry, government and educators to address the nation’s engineering skills shortage. Our economy and society are more reliant on the engineering profession than ever before. We need to ensure we have the engineers necessary to deliver on current government priorities and conceptualise the solutions needed to solve our society’s most complex problems.

Our research shows that for decades, this issue keeps cropping up: there is a systemic shortage of engineers in Australia.

Australia’s engineering workforce has two main channels through which new talent enters the profession – Australians who qualify as engineers through tertiary education, and skilled migrant engineers. Both require attention from the government and industry if the shortage of skilled engineers is to be addressed.

AMT: Can you talk about the challenges behind sustainability in engineering?

RM: It all comes down to planning. In our policy and advocacy work we are very clear on what we see as issues holding Australia back and causing problems that have now come to the fore. In flood-prone areas, we need to be very clear, with infrastructure, we have positions on project governance and planning. I mentioned project governance before in that we do believe government can improve, for instance, best practice procurement. It’s not just sustainability and climate change. We need to have project teams engaged with the First Nations people about what they know about the area? Have they taken on board previous major events to make sure that they’re planning for the right place. What is missing? What is required? What’s the population growth look like? The other area which is crucial is digital infrastructure and innovation.

Considering Lismore as an example. We need to be able to be bold in having a conversation with the community on what should be rebuilt and what should be rebuilt somewhere else. Within the area, but with an appropriate caveat. And there are so many case studies on this. This has happened elsewhere, both in Australia and overseas. So if you look at Christchurch, they have a color code system on where you can, you can rebuild in Christchurch after the earthquake. Governments, councils and others shouldn’t be afraid to have those conversations, because they can be backed up by science, and engineers on the ground.

AMT:  What do you see as the largest part of your job as CEO of Engineering Australia?

RM:  It’s multifaceted and involves team leadership, governance, senior office bearer, member and skakeholder management, policy and public speaking.

We have over 115,000 members of Engineers Australia. And we need to harness the skills and expertise of our members. If we think about the infrastructure stimulus build and the energy transition, for instance. That means making sure that the engineers who gained their degree 10 years ago, can tap into the right courses and micro-credentials and have opportunities in place so they can upskill.

There should be opportunities for them to pivot to those growing areas. Engineers are required for all these new areas. We still need chemical, civil and mechanical engineers, but making sure they’re getting the skills they can be trained in robotics, green or blue engineering, AI, hydrogen energy. So the big thing for us is unlocking the untapped potential of our membership. And helping them to adapt and stay relevant.

Also, we need more engineers. We all know at Engineers Australia; we have an untapped potential in Australia. We have young girls at school who we want to learn maths and physics. We want to make sure that engineering is an attractive career opportunity for them, and that they can see the potential across all the different facets of engineering.

But there are a number of challenges. One is that we are not getting teachers in STEM subjects. The number of teachers with qualifications to lift students into STEM is falling. Secondly, we know that for 90% of girls, engineering is not on their radar. So that means we need to make sure the parents, teachers and career advisors understand and they see the role models and potential of engineering. And then thirdly, we need to ensure that the girls are studying maths and physics. They don’t have to be brilliant at it. They just need to study it. And, most kids study engineering because somebody in their family is an engineer. That’s a fact in Australia.

AMT: How crucial is it for engineers to continue learning.  Adapting. To pivot. And to stay relevant?

RM:  Engineers are natural problem solvers, often referred to as forever learners.  And as a professional body as opposed to an industry body, Engineers Australia is there to ensure the integrity of the engineering professional on their credentials, their training, their certification, the credentialing of the university courses, the migrant skills assessments, and the setting of benchmarks of our expectations of engineers and ensuring we do those assessments annually. This is to ensure people have respect and faith in our different levels of engineering including our chartered engineering, like a chartered accountant. Also with the professional body, it’s an actual requirement in many cases that a project must be signed off by chartered engineering.

Our role in a rebuild after a disaster like the floods we’ve had along the NSW coast, and many, many other areas along the Murray and up in the Kimberley for instance, we should be able to support those engineers in the different colleges as well as our technical societies like the Infrastructure Public Works Engineering Association and specialist humanitarian response agency RedR Australia which we co-founded. We should be like the SES. We do have the ability to do this, but we need to be better. As soon as there’s an incident like the floods, you get all the Emergency Services backing each other in, but in many cases like that, you do actually need engineers. Is this structurally sound? Can we use it? So we should be better at getting volunteer engineers to come in and support when we have these incidents.

AMT: How does Engineers Australia work with skilled migrants with engineering backgrounds?

RM: Skilled migrants are the backbone of Australia’s engineering workforce and a valued cohort of Engineers Australia members.

When I was at Infrastructure Australia, the market capacity report identified that we needed another 41,000 engineers in the next three years, and we know that we can’t produce that number locally.

Engineers Australia believes that supply could be addressed by accessing the existing pool of overseas-born engineers who currently live in Australia. These engineers make up over 58% of Australia’s engineering workforce but have a higher rate of unemployment, take longer to find employment in engineering occupations, and are more likely to be underemployed than Australian-born engineers.

Engineers Australia undertakes the migrant skills assessment for engineers to make sure that their qualifications are equivalent. And if they’re not, we help them bridge that gap between their qualification and what is required in Australia. And so we are now working as connector between the industry and the skilled migrants to help them find opportunities through industry partnerships. Let’s find a pathway to bring them in because we know we have a skills shortage. And we need to help them as Australians and our companies to give them those pathways.

AMT: What is the best part of your job?   What makes you get up in the morning? 

RM:  Engaging, working and collaborating with five generations of engineers, from all facets of the engineering profession. Whether they’re a professional or a technologist or an associate, they’re passionate about their projects. You’ll find that with engineers, it’s an actual life passion for them. They want to make a difference and they want to have an impact. They want to help build a better life and surroundings for people.

 

engineersaustralia.org.au