Season 3 Episode 7: Tim Reardon - on rising through the public sector ranks, delivering NSW’s largest infrastructure pipeline, and inside the walls of government during high-pressure moments

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to Inside Infrastructure. Now um, Janice and I have had a few pre meetings before this because uh, we've both known you for at least 15 years and um, we. So it sort of felt like we didn't. We want to extract all the things that we know about you over that time but also we don't want to have assumed knowledge in the way that we discuss it. So we apologize if we ask you stuff where you know, we know know the answer. Um, but when the team did went away to do some research on this, they actually found um, for someone that we all feel like we know really well, um, there's actually not a great deal of information out there about who you are and um, what you've done. Um, one of the team even mentioned that not even ChatGPT could uh, uh, find enough information to make stuff up about you. Bit of a black box there on the Internet. So we thought maybe a good opening question was could you just tell us who you are, what's the journey been to, where you are now and what you do?

Speaker C: Sure. Thanks Adrian. And uh, good to see you Janice. And um, uh, it's good to actually do this in a semi formal setting that we don't normally catch up in. But. So it's good. But uh, thanks for the opportunity. Um, a little bit of background about me is interesting because I actually um, when I was Secretary of Transport for New South Wales and secretary and Premier and Cabinet, I should actually tell my story in quite a bit of detail a lot. So um, clearly the Internet doesn't pick that up. But I'm happy about that. The public service of New South Wales certainly had heard my journey uh, many times. So uh, from the start I'm um, born and raised in Condobolin, New South Wales, 2877. It's basically the center of the state. I'm extremely proud to be from there. It's a um, wonderful little community. And um, in growing up there, uh, it gives you a few lenses. One is the importance of um, connectivity, which means a feel about infrastructure. Even though you don't think about it as a kid, all you know is the train's a long journey from Condo to Sydney. Um, and by the way, if you stay there local enough long enough, you'll become a local. And you can call it Condo, not Condoblade, which is what everyone does. Um, and the importance of water, the importance of energy, uh, just for living and thriving. But those communities are wonderful communities to grow up in. They're very um, free. You get to do pretty much Anything. Um, I used to say to my daughters, there's not a lot of laws west of the new highway. I probably shouldn't say that, but, uh, certainly life's different in that part of the world and, um, long may it continue to be so. Very, very strong indigenous first nations population in my hometown. So I grew up with.

Speaker B: How big is Condobin?

Speaker C: Three and a half thousand. Three and a half thousand I think when I was born and three and a half thousand I think to this day. So the uh, the ins and outs are pretty, pretty even. Um, and, and it's one of those towns where it has enough economic productivity and renewal that every time someone might try to downgrade it, it upgrades itself. Um, uh, it's very good.

Speaker B: What is the economy?

Speaker C: Uh, so the economy is very agrarian. So, uh, when I grew up we would always say wheat and sheep. It's broadened a lot now to a whole range of grains, a lot of canola. So when you go through the central west, um, at the right time of the year, it is just glorious to look at. It is, um, welcome to a Rajuri country. And it just, I opens up um, beautifully. And um, I always feel that way when I head west with my kids and my wife about how glorious it actually looks. Um, uh, rolling through Bathurst, Orange, et cetera, between parks and Condo a little flatter. But uh, that means it's good for other things that have been, uh, sort of the last 10 to 20 years. Like cotton has come from northwest New South Wales down into the parts of

Speaker B: the central water to do cotton.

Speaker C: Uh, there's always a struggle on water, uh, everywhere. But um, you know, places like narrow Mine through, in and around Condo, it's grown quite a bit even west of Condo. Um, so I don't want to take

Speaker B: an infrastructure angle too quickly, but is it an area that's going to have renewable energy start to come in as another overlay?

Speaker C: Yep. So renewable energy zone for central West Irana is a little east. Um, ah, so uh, that's sort of more just just northeast by an hour or two. But um, it's fairly close by most of the time. You find a 60 mile or 100 kilometer journey for journey to work is not unheard of for a lot of people to travel between town. So Condobelline's near parks, Forbes. People could work in mines, people could work in Dubbo even, which is a couple of hours away. So the renewable energy zone for the central West I have no doubt will be an employment attractor for some local people. Um, you know, travel Distances notwithstanding, people are very mobile when it comes to the right job. So it's close by. It's not in the renewable energy zone for Central West Orana, but um, close enough where it will be an attractive for jobs growth I imagine.

Speaker A: So if you broke your leg in condo, where would you go? Parks.

Speaker C: When we were kids it was Kundabla District Hospital which um, and a shout out to them because they're wonderful people. One of my uh, best friend's older sister is a brilliant um, uh, nurse practitioner. Practitioner in Kondabland Hospital. So it's a really good strong local hospital. Does it have everything? No it doesn't. So Parks um, would be a place to go to which had a renewed hospital 10 or so years ago. Um, Orange is the go to base hospital, as is Dubbo as the go to base hospital. And it things get really critical. Um, it could be a helicopter to Westmead and. Or Sydney Children's Hospital.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's a floor in your question, Janice. If you're in the bush and you break your leg, you just toughen up, pull up your socks and get on with it. No need for a visit. Um, so grew up there, um, skipped forward to working and career. Uh, what did you study? How did that start out?

Speaker C: So when I finished um, school in my um, hometown, so uh, a bunch of us all went through Condoblin High School. Um, very proud of that as well. Has pushed us really hard to um, see where we could go. And a bunch of Condoblin people have gone and done wonderful things not just around the country but around the world. I studied um, a range of things over ah, a long period of time. Um, I studied engineering, I studied natural, uh, resources. It was the first time I actually ever heard way back in the early 90s, renewables and non renewables. Um, and that put an environmental bent onto everything I sort of looked at from that time forward. Studied business management as well, um, amongst some others. So um, in terms of uh, starting with um, New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority, I did several years there in the early 90s and back then New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority was a very strong outfit, um, in the New South Wales government architecture, um, a lot of the motorways for Western Sydney were being built, a lot of the arterials being upgraded to suit those motorways and um, for what a lot of people talk about for Western Sydney now as it's having its boom. It was booming back then as well. You know, the M2, the M7, the M5, the M, M4 were all happening. I um, was fortunate enough to be involved in a whole range of design and seeing a lot of those constructed. Um, the very first design I did on the motorway network was um, uh down at Ingleburn Brooks Road north facing ramps. I'm very proud of those every time I go down the M5. Um but just things like that um gave you a grounding. You were able to chase whatever you wanted there whether it was design, traffic, engineering, economics, environmental management. The RTA as I said was very powerful outfit back then. So the training ground that it was was um, enormous then during the 1990s because I'm from condo, one of the things that did was spark me an interest in seeing the world because you don't see much more of the world um just when you're in condos. So um, I met my partner who's now my wife and uh, we traveled for a good chunk of the 1990s Living and working in London, living and working in Dublin and um, loved it. Um, we had a hell of a lot of travel in between as well. But uh, that was an exploration sort of few years for me until uh, we had to come back, get serious and um, uh settle down with roots in Sydney. I then worked for what was Transport New South Wales I think. Um, the old Department of Transport was

Speaker A: that the Ministry, The Ministry and the

Speaker C: Ministry ah was a name change in the early 2000s post the Olympics and worked through that period for a good number of years um until probably New South Wales uh had a little less um action happening then and Queensland had a really great deal of work going on with things like the Southeast Queensland infrastructure, um plan and program. And I decided that we would spend a few years north of the border uh with uh incredible infrastructure opportunity. Um went into the private sector for a few years um, uh helping and delivering on a whole range of infrastructure projects in, in Queensland more generally, but Southeast Queensland in particular when they delivered a lot of infrastructure in a short period of time. Um and then in 2010 came back to Sydney with a specific very strong passion and desire that my home state um needed a lot of next wave of critical infrastructure. Um people caught it removing a backlog. I wouldn't call it that. I'd say the population growth and the economic growth that New South Wales needed on the Australian national stage meant that as someone from the state I felt a real calling to actually join back into the New South Wales government. And I was fortunate enough to um, re enter at the start of transport for New South Wales and we actually established the Organization, um, and I like to think over a decade we moved a mountain in terms of infrastructure. And um, um then I joined Premier and Cabinet of course during that period. And here I am now as I o Commissioner.

Speaker B: So that job, the first one back for transport from USA 5, that was a policy job. Would that have been quite different to what you'd done?

Speaker C: It was, but I had specific um, uh sort of strategy and policy experience in a whole range of guys. So I'll be frank with you. I was asked that question a long time ago about there were six deputy directors, general deputy secretaries, um, recruited uh, in a new structure of a transport for New South Wales. I looked at the mud map of those and thought the great and the good that will be recruited to them. I'm going for that one because I just wanted to get into the organization. And then for several years after that, um, people used to say this is Tim Reardon and this is his bio and this is what he does. And I'd say that's what I do for the first hour in the morning and then the Director General will ask me to do lots and lots of other things. So he gave me an enormous amount of opportunities which was Les Willinga to you know, really expand into a whole range of um, areas which culminated in me being appointed AS Secretary in 2015, which um, the honor and privilege of that is still a pinch me moment to this day considering where I'm from. Um, so uh, uh, that was the first part, uh to answer your question. It expanded very very quickly though because if you put the shoulder to the wheel when you think about we were establishing transport for New South Wales as an entity that was upheaval in itself. Enough RTA was abolished, RailCorp was abolished, Sydney Trains was established, New South Wales Trains was established. We put customer experience across everything. We rolled out the Opel card, we rolled out a whole range of other changes for customer facing on licensing, registration, et cetera. And we built WestConnex, NorthConnex, Northwest Metro, started planning for Sydney, uh, Metro Sydney and Southwest and the other metros that followed that. Parramatta Light Ra, CBD Light Rail and subsequently Newcastle. That was a lot in a short space of time. So um, the executive found themselves stretched quite a bit. We franchised a range of things, we contract renewed a range of things, um, like Sydney Ferries and the bus contracting. So um, lots of people needed to put their shoulder to the wheel at the senior level. And we actually did that fairly well.

Speaker A: Would you say like I remember you saying at one point in time, that like the Secretary of Transport was your favorite job ever. And like I wonder if you sort of reflect on that period and think like just how much energy went into the actual portfolio, into not just the actual like civil infrastructure but also into the services delivery and the sort of innovation layer that sort of sits above the network. Are there things in there that you look back on and think, you know, those were my legacy. Like the things that really define your career, you know, more so than even all the sort of transport engineering as you say sort of pedigree into the role.

Speaker C: Um, Chief Commissioner of Infrastructure Australia makes a good contest for her favourite role. Um, certainly. But um, then um, I thought about it for a long while because New South Wales did lag for a long while. There's no politic in that comment, it just did. And therefore it was a passion in me and I didn't mind if I was a deputy secretary for the rest of my career or a secretary that wasn't a status thing. But once you actually are appointed uh, to that role you take on the enormity of the accountability and the responsibility of the role. Um, I used to break it down into sort of three segments. Um, and then also the people of the organization. But customer was number one service delivery was number one service delivery perfection which it never is on any particular weekday. But you try to get as close as possible to on time running great customer satisfaction results which was a big turnaround for the organization in just that customer focus. Two, build the biggest infrastructure pipeline that we'd seen for a long, long time, if not ever and make sure we had social license to achie that and then three, plan for the long term future through future transport strategy, keep all those things driving forward. But the service delivery is everything. Like uh, everyone talks about ribbon cutting on big projects that can last for 10 years in terms of mini milestones. But m it's a service delivery people only care about their last bus, train or motorway trip.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I was working in New South Wales government in that, in that former period as well. And I just reflect on it as sometimes governments feel like they don't have enough to spend and it reduces their aperture down. But there was a period where transport in New South Wales felt a little bit more boundless. Um, and that was certainly a period of time where you were in leadership roles.

Speaker C: It did. I think balance isn't a bad word because when I used to think when I'm not doing this any longer with the great colleagues I worked with, um, you know in the public service and not just in transport, but helped by many others collaborating. Um, what we delivered was enormous. And I used to always think I'll probably forget half of this because there is actually so much um, that uh, we actually um, put through within that sort of ten year period. Um, yeah, golden period for the state in terms of infrastructure uplift. Um, awesome privilege to be a part of that and look back on it. But um, I played a role to try and drive the place forward. I played actually a little intergenerational role between the leaders that had come before me. Try to renew the leadership as much as possible. So those that followed me secession wise had the right DNA and the right thinking about how to take things forward. And I used to say if transport for New South Wales as a structure could remain whole for even a decade, we would move a lot of infrastructure forward. And the fact that it's now 2026 and bipartisan is still in that same structure, all very similar. I'm um, enormously pleased that that is there.

Speaker B: I'd just make the point. It was a period of boundless um, delivery and energy. But it wasn't an accident. There was the broader reform of the New South Wales balance sheet that drove that. I think it's people can say oh that was a purple period. There was loads happened but actually it was a very deliberate process to um, uh, recycle assets, reinvest the proceeds and spend that money. So it's not a, it's not an accident.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: It was a driven.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you were the beneficiary of that as the secretary being able to play a part in deploying where that one

Speaker C: I got it delivering. Yeah, I'd have to say that like unpacking just a little bit further. It's like 2011 to 2014 or so. The organization was young as in the government was. And also Transport for New South Wales as a bring together. There's a couple of years of just you know.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Forming, storming, um, norming, performing. And there was. Because it was all new, new relationships, new who's reporting to who. And I don't say that in some small way. It's like when you've got agencies that have been around for a long time all of a sudden subsumed.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: There is a lot of cultural alignment that is required.

Speaker A: I reckon that's right. Because so to your, to your point Adrian, like there was definitely a fiscal strategy that sort of sat under it but actually chicken and egg here. There was also a cultural one and I don't, I think there Those two

Speaker B: things, like it self reinforces as well. Like, I think that's the thing that's lost in that, uh, is that, yeah, there was some balance sheet reform, asset recycling, there was the cultural piece. But then once you get them, like there's big inertia in these machines, but once you get them moving, they self generate. And also from a fiscal perspective, like growth begets growth.

Speaker A: That's right, yeah.

Speaker C: And confident. Confidence does drive confidence. Confidence does drive confidence. Like so the capability uplift as well, not just culture was enormous. You know, we would have very small industry briefings in 2012 going, why aren't you looking at other jurisdictions who are way ahead of you? Yeah, roll forward five years and we'd walk into a room for not just a, uh, industry briefing on the entire pipeline, but on one project. And it could be 800 people sitting in there, you know, looking to get engaged in New South Wales. Because we'd given confidence on pipeline, we actually knew what we were talking about, the skills and experience, which was not where it needed to be lifted incredibly. Um, and it did in other jurisdictions at the same time as well, which is, um, which is fantastic for the country. But, um, then that drives um, its own sort of momentum. As Adrian said, that. That is very true.

Speaker B: Um, so your favorite job was Secretary of Transport, closely followed by Infrastructure Australia, Chief Commissioner. But, um, you had another secretary job as well, uh, leading the public service. Why is that one not your favourite?

Speaker C: Uh, it's a different honor being the, the Secretary of Premier and Cabinet. Um, it chooses you. You don't choose it in some ways. Um, certainly when you were asked to do that job, you can't do it and do it to the best of your ability. I just didn't think I was a natural fit for it. Um, someone else did as in the premiere. But, um, uh, I was asked to go there to have the same ethos and culture as transport, which is pragmatically and practically deliver as much as you can and get on with things. Um, we're estate level, um, government, which is about service delivery to the community in the 8.2 million people, I think at that time of New South Wales and bringing that same thought process into the entire public service that, um, I had driven as much as I could into transport for New South Wales and the sort of about 10 associated entities around transport for New South Wales, Sydney Metro, Sydney, um, trains, etc, and we worked collaboratively. And if you didn't, you would be marked on getting back into order of working collaboratively. So we did pretty well, that same sort of thinking came to um, Premier and Cabinet, just a completely different job, Wonderful privilege to do it. Um, I look back and people mostly go, so you got floods, bushfires, Covid, um, uh, a locust plague and sorry, a mice plague. And the only thing we didn't get was locusts. So. So yes, it was very difficult. But right at the start of that, um, we had the uh, again the opportunity to structurally change how the public service was. So I look back on it and say customer service is still there today as a full sort of department in the state of New South Wales. And we were kind of a very, very early mover, not just in Australia, but around the world for doing that. And um, service New South Wales thinking. Um, and I think that's a good legacy for the um, for the state and hopefully across the country in doing that type of thing. Whether it's you know, departments of government services and other jurisdictions or digital and data. I don't mind. It's like it's the same ethos is there, which is customer digital technology to make life easier for human beings in the um, jurisdiction you're in. And um, they were good things to do. It was a pity that only six months later we started bushfires and then Covid came on and that did fully take up the entire resource and thinking of the government. But I have to say for the infrastructure community working through that, everyone needs an absolute uh, five gold star for working diligently. We used to say that the safety inductions and the safety on a work site were sometimes higher order than you'd find in a health setting because they are like to get onto a work site. Um, so what people did to not close down the industry, except for a very small period in 2021, is a credit to everyone involved in this jurisdiction.

Speaker B: Certainly, uh, we won't dwell too much on the COVID period, but you were one of a very small number of people that was um, privy to national cabinet meetings and all of that really intense stuff. And obviously you're bound by the confidentialities. I wouldn't ask you anything about the details of those, but can you just reflect on that time, um, being in a leadership position of a huge organization with a thing that had never happened in living memory, like the pressure on you from a leadership perspective that there's no playbook for this. Just looking back and how was that for you?

Speaker C: Uh, some of it is sort of like in the Beltway government, there actually are playbooks. Whether the playbooks are perfect, um, is another matter. So you know, you'll find a bunch of um, uh, you know, emergency response plans, including sub plans for pandemic or flash or et cetera. And that's very biblical. But you have to keep them close at hand, um, whether they're perfect for the situation. Um, at least they're a guide, uh, to begin with. Um, it was unprecedented for me. I immediately, because I'm a delivery and try to get back to normal as fast as possible. I started talking to the Premier and others about recovery almost at the start. So for the state not to go off from the massive distraction of the health response, that was enormous for the health team, I did a brilliant job for New South Wales Police who had to work with them, um, amongst many other agencies. But I had the senior level of the public service immediately drive into a, um, recovery process. Um, we need to talk about recovery and when we get out of this, what we're going to do, fiscal stimulus. So all of that stuff to keep the state back going forward, because having watched what we had to do for the shutdowns of putting your own state into recession after having put your shoulder to the wheel for a decade before that was soul destroying. Um, you know, some late nights were very soul destroying on that. But therefore it was a very much a focus on recovery. Senior levels of the public service certainly, um, got that message and we drove as hard as we could about what we could reopen when we could reopen. And it wasn't perfect, it was bumpy for another 12 months. Um, but there was always a balance between health response to the day to day and what we, where and how we could recover. And um, I thought that the New South Wales government itself did some great things working with the federal government about fiscal stimulus during that period. And I won't comment on the broader, um, federal fiscal stimulus, you know, the New South Wales stuff, targeted quick to uh, market so customers could actually benefit quickly. I thought was um, incredible actually.

Speaker B: And if you just say that sort of pithy idiom of don't waste a crisis, do you think, um, uh, to what extent did we waste the crisis? Where did, where was it wasted? Where did we take advantage of the crisis sufficiently to change things?

Speaker C: So, uh, you know, talking six. Oh, sorry, about six, nine months prior about, um, um, we're going to go out and announce the Department of Customer Service and one of the first ones in the world. And I said to a few people this will be treated by the media with equal, um, a little bit amazement, bit of pride and mirth, as in how silly Governments don't do customer service. Um, I'd like to think a couple of years later, ah, that the drive of fast paced digital and quick community um, assistance uh, became commonplace and normalised very, very quickly in a broader sense than just what service New South Wales had been doing for a fair while before that. So the acceptance of digital uptake was enormous. That was in other clusters as well, including telehealth for um, an obvious example including even what happened in corrective services about how prison visitations were undertaken, et cetera. Um, using digital um, it was quite extraordinary. So did all of that get locked in forever? I don't know, I can't comment on it now. But a lot moved forward really, really well. Um, and probably for the counter of your question is, have we recorded all the lessons effectively enough? I know there's been reviews, et cetera but um, I do find the fade in senior levels of the public service because of just turnover of human beings that um, reinventing wheels does occur quite a bit and I'm hoping that that won't occur for whatever we see in the future.

Speaker B: For me there were some areas. The most obvious example is uh, when there were shortages of pasta and toilet paper and those sorts of things. He said, right, we're gonna um. The regulations that apply to deliveries to Woolies and Coles, uh, you know, you can't do it after 10pm they're gone. You can do them anytime. And the sky didn't fall in M and yet we, we allowed those like pretty restrictive things and that's a small example to reemerge. You just think there's some stuff where that tide went out and we should have said we're gonna keep. Take those things out like from a regulatory.

Speaker C: Definite. Yes. Like, you know, you're always pushing hard against regulatory places where people are trying to do the right thing and prevent people from noise and a whole range of other things late at night. But I was actually surprised on the way into that because that was just put in place very m very quickly and there wasn't a lot of noise because people needed essential services. So um, it happened. Um, there are a few of those towards the end where I can't comment because I wasn't there any longer. But not locking a few of them in. Um, yeah, there was a few missed opportunities.

Speaker B: It's such a shame that you're going to need a crisis to make those things happen. But yeah, we could have done better I think.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's an interesting idea. Like what do you keep and what do you shed at the end of that period because you're sort of making it up as you go along, just quickly trying to curl resources and like, the digital legacy is clearly one of those. I remember at the time, like there was a unit of like virus trackers within New South Wales Health who was sort of a bit of a legacy from a previous era. And it's almost like the fact that they had stayed in place and not been sort of cost cut along the way was actually a really good standing capability. And I, uh, do wonder. So the digital sort of frameworks are one. But did you find in that period there were just some limits in terms of what government institutions could do and how you sort of navigated that?

Speaker C: Oh yeah, there were like, you know, people sort of talk at start in uh, March, April, even before that. The first time I become aware of it and made a phone call about it I think was on the 13th of January 2020. Um, and we were in the middle of bushfires and I remember asking, what's this thing called? COVID 19, like, you know, and we just got to the start of it. But even within a coup of months, um, the capability to purchase personal protective equipment for medical personnel, for ventilators, um, we all became experts on ventilators, um, on hand sanitizer, ah, you name it. And the supply chains to bring those basic products into the country came from some seriously interesting places around the world. So actually setting up New South Wales Police to lead on a lot of that was a brand new thing and that, that was not contemplated in normal state emergency operation setup. You know, the agency that has the lead for a rural bushfire, unsurprisingly is rural fire Service. For other things, there are other agencies for health, public health, it's health, um, where that becomes so enormous and a worldwide pandemic. A very good lesson learned is look for strategic friends. And um, that took a few bumps along to get it set up. But once we got set up in um, Sydney Olympic park as a broader, uh, response and recovery for that matter, life, uh, was a lot smoother. So yes, there are some legacy things there, but are they thinking broadly enough? Um, well, clearly it wasn't because the PPE requirement was like when I got told he's how much money funding we're going to put against just that, it was eye watering.

Speaker A: Wow. And just a state takeover of that supply chain is extraordinary as well for people.

Speaker C: When everyone else, every other state and territory and everyone else around the world was chasing the same supply chains, it was um, our sovereign Capability commentary came up nice and early about what things the nation needs is essential services like fuel, how much storage we have, all those type of things. Almost every other day there was a new thing to contemplate. Right.

Speaker B: Um, I asked this question, being aware that there's not the proper language to ask it, but was it exciting?

Speaker C: The 10 years prior was exciting. It was not exciting. That's just a personal view. Um, I like to see progress in my nation and in the state that I grew up in. And seeing all of that unwind was, uh, not exciting to me. I don't get excited by those things. I've had to sit in a whole range of emergency operations and it's just total focus of do your job and do it to the best of your ability. Brief as best you can. Try, uh, to get effective decisions made and once they're made, get the public service to implement. Um, and what I just said then was pretty much almost every other day we were doing that. So not exciting for me. I don't. It's not. All I'd say to you is in emergency operations, I probably would have to find some serious experts who would now come to a few of us and say, this is how you do things better. We had to do pretty much everything that, um, I could think of as an emergency operations. Floods, bushfires and Covid. At the same time, um, I'd like to think there's a very good capability. Whether we wanted that capability. Um, there's a very good capability in the country. Hopefully we can hang onto that so it doesn't dissolve into the mists of time and reinvent it all again.

Speaker B: So you dealt with COVID uh, and now you've taken on a new challenge. Um, Chief Commissioner of Infrastructure Australia, um, an organization that all three of us have got a bit of a history with. I worked there previously. Um, Janice spent a lot of time doing advisory work and some of the structures on it, um, but across probably different eras. You were there more at the start,

Speaker A: Janice, sort of early on and then bits through.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was some of the middle there. And now you're the contemporary piece. So, um, why that job?

Speaker C: Ah, so for me personally, um, I wanted to remain engaged and contribute, um, to the nation or, um, you know, as best I could. I, uh, didn't think I would end up being Chief Commissioner of Infrastructure Australia. I'm very humbled by it. So m. It's a wonderful thing. But as an area, I had a soft spot for Infrastructure Australia for a long time because I saw it established. Um, I've known the leadership throughout um, they've been enormously good back in the day to um, New South Wales, when New South Wales had hardly any projects and then a glut of projects to flow through and they helped us enormously get it back into the game of infrastructure and the federal government going, growing trust of a pipeline of projects in New South Wales. So always a really strong um, connectivity with ia. It's gone through a whole range of um, different phases and governments thinking about it differently. I make no comment on that. All I know is when they set up a new structure they wanted a few commissioners to try and drive it for its next um, period. And I might have something to add that's about the reason um, why I'm here. The fact that I came from state level into a federal uh, regime and seeing more and more state level leadership at the federal government level and just a good blended mix for the Australian public service. I was always keen for that type of thing to occur. Um, so it just opens up the thinking to um, really incredibly smart Commonwealth um, public servants with people from the states who are also incredibly smart but have had their hands very dirty for a lot of years on customer um, service operational outcomes and just the complexity of delivering uh, major infrastructure, whether it's in regional Australia or certainly urban Australia. Um, that was the reason I was attracted to it and just to drive the next phase of the organization forward.

Speaker A: So this is probably like version 3.0 for Infrastructure Australia. Um, what is different about it this time in terms of the way it's going to work and for you, what priorities are you bringing for the role?

Speaker C: Uh, so what's different is there are three commissioners now there's no longer a board. Um, the Chief Commissioner is to get very engaged in the organisation. We keep our governance very careful though that we are the approving authority over the top of the organisation. But we're out doing a lot more things than um, ah, a somewhat more passive board would do. Our decision making is quite quick uh because, and we come together, our legislation says you need to have at least four meetings per year. Um, we have many, many more than that because we're involved in a whole range more things. So massive priority for us right at the moment is the infrastructure priority list. We've been asked to make a more targeted priority list. We've put together very specific themes for that, um, uh, for that priority list around five areas, um, and you know very quickly freight, ports, water, energy and mass transit. And we've stuck to those. They're in our annual budget statement that sits in Federal parliament right now if anyone wants to look at where we're leaning towards and um, we'll have more to say about that fairly soon actually. So um, that's a big priority and it has been for the last six months or so. Equal with that is just collaboration with the jurisdictions with the states and territories um normally taking a bottom up approach and my very first time advising on anything into Infrastructure Australia was to Queensland believe it or not when I was living in Brisbane on their very first priority projects um Gold Coast Light Rail for example or Derrida Springfield um things like that which, which are all in place now which is great but um, we've been very deliberate about a level of collaboration we've undertaken. We've been right around the country over the last six to nine months except for Tasmania. We'll be down in Tasmania within the next month or so making sure we spend significant amounts of time on actual projects um, that they think should um be on the list. Um just testing a few of those things, testing our thinking. We've um thought about how we would ban things in investment ready for the 26, 27 budget or 2 to 4 year for the forward estimates or 5 to 10 year. Um and that's really been helpful for jurisdictions. It's meant they could have um a discussion about the here and now and the what are we planning for next. We've been asked to take very much a top down approach which is what we've done. What is Infrastructure Australia's view? To give a blueprint for um infrastructure uh delivery for the country. And uh we've certainly taken that on as um I say we hope to finish that work off pretty quickly.

Speaker A: Now like one of the missing links that's always been sort of raised about IA was that proximity to budget setting, to investment decision making to the actual machinations of cabinet like is that something that you see as being addressed now in this incarnation of ia?

Speaker C: Yep. So the leadership at uh ministerial level with um Minister the Hon Katherine King giving, requesting a lot more from us around the very things you raised. Leadership of the Commonwealth Department being Jim Betts, um, being a former colleague of mine and now a colleague again um means that the trust and connect is high. It means that we are asked to trade off pure independence with more influence and the Infrastructure Australia review in the last couple of years said exactly that influence means we are now advising on a whole range of uh things that surprisingly to me hadn't been asked from the Commonwealth uh of IA in the Past around budget advisors, et cetera. So we are far closer to the action on a very frequent basis on advising on budget for a whole range of things.

Speaker B: So I preface the question about on the basis during that review, uh, the advice I gave was it should land where it is. But it is also true that on that spectrum of independence and influence, if you are too far one way you are insufficiently the other. Is it the case that actually it's not really independent anymore, it's just that a good function of a department?

Speaker C: Good question. So look, I'm just a pragmatist, so it's a bit of both, to be quite frank with you. We're accountable to a minister, you know, we see her as our customer. We're also accountable to um, parliament for various instruments and products we have as well. Um, but I think it's just a balancing act where we need to have an independent view on something. We have an independent view on something. So uh, for where you might ask me questions about projects, we'll still evaluate high speed rail and suburban rail loop and any other project that comes through the door and we'll have our own view on it where we're asked to give specific independent advice on um, budget settings. It's an influencing um, uh role of course, but we're still giving our independent view. Like we're not um, you know, having our uh, program of work directed to us by um, anyone. We've got certain things under legislation we have to do, we have to treat them independently. It just so happens that the Commonwealth Department is collaborating like fantastically well with us and asking us for more and more things.

Speaker B: But just to challenge that notion, uh, my view of a good Westminster public service is that it should be independent but not necessarily impartial. It should deliver on the priorities of the government of the day, but it should have independence thought and it should tell the government the truth, even if it's uncomfortable. Um, but then when the government makes a decision, deliver on it. So how is that the model you're talking about? Why is there a need for a brand and a specific thing and not just part of the Department of Infrastructure's day to day job? What's the advantage of that?

Speaker C: So probably two things. One is I think it's um, as close to pure Westminster than um, I'm sure you've spoken about it here before, Washington or Westminster. And uh, what are we somewhere in the middle? The feel for me for IA is closer to purist Westminster because you actually have to give your independent, fearless and frank Advice, um, one step removed. So that's one. The other is just a practical day to day thing. A Commonwealth Department of Transport for New South Wales for that matter. If you joined one of those armies and said I'm going in and my specific role is to do X, I'm really going to drive at that. Once you get into the complexity of one of those major, major departments, um, we used to say at Secretaries Board what you thought you were going to do today you'll stop doing at about 7:30am and then you'll do a lot of other things um, for that day. So the distraction level and what they have to juggle just within the beltway of government is enormous. So having somewhere where they can go to with confidence and say you're focused, you're going to do that, you're going to do it at speed. And our real reason for being in our value add is quick, decisive, independent advice that is timely for um, the Commonwealth Department and the Minister for Budget advice. And if we, if I had to deal with all of this stuff that my colleague Jim Betts would have to deal with and his executive um, I would be anything but that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And the high speed rail uh, release that Infrastructure Australia put out was probably that first test case of the model in terms of a new way of working, publishing its assessment in full, that sort of thing. Could you talk us through this decision and what it might show about what we can expect from IA's next set of work around the priority list and the national infrastructure plan.

Speaker C: So it's a very big project, um, and very, and it's been talked about for decades as we know for this country. Um, it was no different to any other evaluation actor, proponent happens to be another Federal government agency. But um, the dollar figure doesn't mean that the evaluation method is any different under the assessment framework. So it got more media attention as did Suburban Rail Loop and some others. But um, it was just treated. The main things we're trying to do internally is to remove any real or perceived duplication with jurisdictions and with Commonwealth agencies like Australian rail track corporations and High Speed rail, et cetera. So we just move evaluations as fast as practical while doing a good quality job of course, um, but treated no differently. We just want to churn things through and the amount of valuations that are actually coming through now, um, is being quite busy. Like there's been a lot of things and you'll see, as I said, when the infrastructure priority list more targeted, um, is released in the not too distant future, you'll find a lot of things on that have been very um, sort of either we're looking at them now or just looked at them or they could be in budget advice, et cetera. There's a lot of stuff going through the organization at the moment which um, which is good but just speed to try and get things done, work more collaboratively with, with a lot more Commonwealth agencies. Traditionally IA has been transport, transport, transport and then some water and energy. I'm not saying that's a turnaround immediately but net zero and uh, clean energy economy is one of those five themes. Secure and sustainable water is another one of those five themes. So we've had to become far more expert in those areas very quickly because under our legislation we are telecommunications, transport, energy, water and some social infrastructure. So we're trying to balance out uh, the portfolio, you see a bit more of that. And even then within um, the transport areas we've got one called mass transit for growing cities which seems like a fairly obvious statement but it will be very deliberate about what we think is needed for housing growth and faster housing growth to help with the 1.2 million um, uh, housing accord across the country for the next few years. Because there'll be another need for a housing accord after that I have no doubt. So where we go to with mass transit as a nation I think has been enormously fantastic. Across Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, all done a pretty job. Cross river rail, Melbourne Metro on with suburban rail loop, Sydney Metro here, Metro net over in Perth, just to name a few, is just been incredible and um, we probably don't pause and reflect on it enough. So that's a very deliberate area because if housing is probably um, one of the top three uh, focus areas for the government, then it would be remiss of us not to play a central role in that. Mhm.

Speaker A: And with energy infrastructure and net zero. So I think we're all on board with the absolute scale of the task of energy transition. It is absolutely ginormous but it's also quite a contested space in terms of the role of TNSPs and who plans the infrastructure, et cetera. And I think it's quite uh, uh, in flux. Right. So in all of that what's infrastructure Australia's role, Where's the opportunity for it to really have an impact? Yep.

Speaker C: So we unsurprisingly we've uh, leveraged off our transport uh, and infrastructure sort of backgrounds and expertise and we said what's the enabling infrastructure needs for renewable energy zones and once we start, started unpicking it, uh, I thought someone will say you don't need to play a role here. We're all under control. It's been anything but. Most people have said dive in, we need help. Because as you said there are a lot of players. Social license is, you know, really sort of being challenged in a whole range of regional communities. We basically said we'll play to what are the port capacity upgrades needed for wind turbines for example, to bring them onshore because the scale of them numbers is eye watering. What's the lay down facilities needed? All very basic stuff. What's the upgrades needed for, um, highways up to the renewable energy zones from the port that are on the national land transport network or adjacent to it. Um, and let's map those. So we map those for the entire national energy market and uh, for Western Australia as well. And um, we're now getting more programmatic about that. So that will be a key theme for um, the role that we think we need to play. It's a pretty much a freight and logistics task, but thinking it through. Some ports have basically been oversubscribed with how many wind turbines they can bring through in the time that people need them. So we're trying to work out how to spread that around, um, ports, land transport, heavy vehicle freight networks so we can achieve the 2030, 2035 um, targets. But uh, that's a big task that we've had to go from very low base six months ago to a program of work potentially. Now you'll see that come out in the infrastructure priority list.

Speaker B: Uh, one of the things you said about the priority list is more targeted, which I think we'd all welcome because these things, things tend to get unwieldy over time. Um, but there's lots of good ideas, right? And people could bring you thousands of good ideas and you could say 900 of them are good. But there's a fiscal constraint as well about how much you can spend. Do you think that infrastructure Australia would benefit from being told or giving some guidance by the government about what the fiscal envelope is? So uh, we have X to spend. Where could we best deploy it? Do you think that would make, would that be a way of constraining the priority list or giving some mechanism to constrain?

Speaker C: I think we're getting closer to playing some role in that. But I'll defer to my Commonwealth Department colleagues and that's their job. Um, they do give a fiscal envelope. When you think about $120 billion pipeline for the nation, do we add everything up and go? It all squeezed into that, uh, either 80, 20 split or 50, 50 split with the jurisdict. Um, no, we don't necessarily do that. But, uh, my personal view is I've asked with my commissioner colleagues for IA to be quite unconstrained across public and private, across, um, assets where we just don't have a role to play potentially on a port that's privatized or an airport for that matter. We just said, what are the needs for the country? Take a step right back, um, and then put a top down, uh, through. If you think about what I said with future transport over the next 40 years, it still has stuff in it and um, I don't know the status of it now and that's fine. But, uh, it still has, um, enough projects to deliver for a probably 8 million population, Sydney and metro lines, railway lines, et cetera. Um, there was always going to be a much larger pipeline of projects than there was fiscal capability. My personal view is that's the right way around. So if we end up, if we ended up with, um, just enough, um, I think the level of ambition would be at risk. And the reason I say that is because always, um, from way back early in my career when I work for the RTA, they taught me the art of have 28 projects on the shelf ready to go for the next dollar that's made available, um, from a government. Um, when we go into budget advice, there's a little bit more thinking about what the other possible. But we're asked to be very independent and say, what are the needs? Um, we're aware of, you know, $120 billion, ah, over a period of time. But, um, do we match those perfectly? We leave the lead to that to the Commonwealth Department. It could help us, um, going forward, but, um, that's kind of where it is at the moment.

Speaker A: Look, I think it's a really interesting question, right, because it's assuming that scarcity will sharpen your thinking about what you really need. And in an unconstrained evaluation, what are the things that drive one to stand out, one project to stand out above another. So what are the criteria? What's the evaluation?

Speaker C: So the national significant test, um, we publish that and there's a whole range what the need is. They're pretty broad though of her say one key criteria is obviously $250 million, um, of a Commonwealth contribution to, uh, start considering stuff, um, considering a project. But, uh, then there's just a sequence of criteria around strategic merit, all the broad things you can imagine. The economic evaluation, plenty of Things with a BCR lesson one have been funded. Um, there's some pragmatism in that around the country for certain types of infrastructure, um, deliverability. So we go into the areas you need to uh, try and lead the government to a place to say is this worthy or not? But we're not as definitive as yes, no, like you know, binary. No, we ah, just say here's an evaluation of the artifacts and aspects of a major project notwithstanding what our personal views might be on a few of them. Because um, as I said you'll see in the priority list some themes where we've been quite deliberate so we are more targeted. Not just there's this many projects or whatever, but these are the areas of the economy that we believe are the priorities for right now.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: That central point of advisors advise governments decide but it's best that they have all of the knowledge when they make the decision so they can. Yes, this thing might be sub economic but there's other reasons to do it. But crucially you know what the risks are and you're doing that eyes wide open and transparently is the kind of crucial part of it. Just on the, the fiscal envelope thing, I think we would benefit so much from a country of treating infrastructure investment more like we consider defense investment where we have a proportion of GDP as a kind of target over the cycle. It should be like that. It's a function of the size of the economy, the size of the population, the service delivery. Actually in our most recent um, investment monitor where we do the kind of league table of the states, um, we don't put the Commonwealth in it because their money is typically distributed through the states. But we, we change the methodology to reward stability over growth. It uh, it penalizes Queensland because the, the funding is hockey sticking up and it penalizes Victoria because it's hockey sticking down. Because actually what you want is stability over time and we've got to find some mechanism that reduces the oscillation in the funding both up and down because you need, the market needs to be able to respond in a kind of more predictable way or you get cost inflation, et cetera, et cetera. It would be great if we could have some constraining influence on um, the list of good ideas.

Speaker A: But then it has been sort of countercyclical at times and I feel like infrastructure spending has sometimes needed to scale up or scale down depending on other factors.

Speaker B: And I get, I'm saying kind of over the cycle you want that. But I think we've been countercyclical by accident sometimes rather than by design. Anyway that's um, uh a debate for another time that will continue to rage on um, just on that uh, without giving away what's in the new ipl. Where do you see the longer term challenges for infrastructure? Been through a big build out. Like what's, what do you think's next?

Speaker C: So I think we know for a country that's going to become on current settings a nation of 40 million people, there's lots and lots to do. Um, it's quite extraordinary to say those numbers out loud. You know we're now over 27 million people. You know I remember five minutes ago we were rounding the 20 million mark. Um, so we're going to be a much larger country and a lot of those people are going to live in uh, four or five really big cities. So there are, are water challenges, there are energy challenges and there are mass transit challenges in those cities. Um, personal views are uh, things like desalination, um and its importance as an underpinning for climate resilience will increase um, in importance. So um, you know water storages as they currently stand, some are still really important but for urban areas, um, groundwater recycling and, and decel at a scale that might be some benchmark of the population's consumption for all the major capitals. Um now I quickly sort of say that the federal government less works in urban water and it's left up to the jurisdictions and the constitution makes certain comments about that. But that's where our independence is important just to say it like it is because um, if Perth or Sydney needs desale at a certain level, regardless who's funding it's still needed and that's our job to top down um, point to those things. So I think water and the scale of the cities will be one. I think there's lots of mass transit um, and urban roads that will be needed as well. But uh, mass um, transit and even a larger sort of mode shift to mass transit by necessity. Not because I go out there and go would you mind getting on the bus? But when you're clagged up on the road system you will probably need to take the bus or rail in the future because, because our four biggest cities in particular, they're world scale, they'll become world scale. You know Melbourne sort of heading somewhere between 8.59, Sydney well over 8, Brisbane and southeast Queensland is just enormous. And Perth like I think it's going to surprise people how quickly Perth will just keep growing and growing and it's a very linear city as we know, but it'll need more new things to um, think about how it should shapes itself and it moves around. So um, the city's enormous regionally. Um, our food security will always be top of mind. Therefore water projects um, in regional areas um will be top of mind for um, some of our food bowls of course um, and the sustainability of that water. The energy transition for the next five years while we go through as you said Janice, so many players and state of flux will require just massive amounts of attention. And like a call out to colleagues in you know, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water at the federal level for reforming the EPBC act um late last year which they did that rather quickly. Um now it has to flow through with real change in terms of planning approvals, timings, et cetera. But we similarly are trying to move faster with our business cases. So we'll work with them as much as we can to try and improve of uh their timings and how they go about things where we've got a role to play of course working with them. Um, and then those two to underpin housing and water in urban areas in particular. And then the renewable energy zones for the next couple of years are just a very high focus. Some others are just national consistency. So the high productivity freight networks is another one of our themes which is like lots more high productivity, uh trucking on the national land transport network, upgrades to the national network of interoperability. As much as that's a mouthful, um, including uh rail signaling et cetera. Consistency across the country as much as technocrat that language is, that is super important. And the fact that ministers have collectively, uh infrastructure ministers have collectively signed up to that is just enormous for the productivity of the country. So treasuries should see things like and go. So it's not just all new build. There's actually some upgrade to signaling systems for better throughput, better efficiency and productivity. So um, there are some I could talk about lots of others.

Speaker B: But I'm glad you asked about or you mentioned productivity because I think productivity and reform is um, the desires bubbling away, the activities yet to emerge. You have a role in advising on reform nationally and productivity nationally. Where do you see some of the issues in there where you can be

Speaker C: most impactful still um, emerging Adrian, if I'm honest because uh, it's a crowded space like everyone says the word quickly um and then sort of says they. Lots of diagnosis of the problem but solutions a little less. We put in market capacity, a few things like um, clearly made in Australia modern Methods of um uh construction as areas that need to um sort of advance and procurement that includes incentives to achieve that. There are a whole range of funds at the federal level now that um need to land at a personal level. Uh looking at things like the federal funding agreement for uh the commonwealth and the jurisdictions and some of the things that are in there about trying to turn the dial on culture, diversity, inclusion, culture standard um and just doing things differently and procuring not just the lowest cost. Um I think there's a fair bit uh that could be achieved there but uh. I'm just not quite close enough to the action because I don't work at state level anymore around when they go and procure what incentives are put in place as a common for all bidders for R and D innovation setting something up. Because when you're building something for 10 billion uh dollars a uh small component of that going up front as opposed to yet another risk down the back for a cost pressure um in innovation incentive um makes sense to me intuitively. Um and I know that you've probably had lots of conversations on that. But practic doing practical stuff like that in procurement is where you know I'd like to see it. Seeing some of the examples from around the world on that, where that's occurred seems to have some good success. Um as I said culture the organ, the sector itself would talk about culture and say the amount of women who are still not attracted to the industry. Um that will be linked to some things like modern methods of construction where assembly off site is not the same as um, uh being on site. Maybe that'll be a paradigm shift. Um you can only you know sort of keep a, keep a focus on that. Um so there, there are a few of the areas and I know they're not new and um, you know happy to hear your reflections on it as well. But um. Even the EPVC work that was done last year, that um is something you want to flow through um as best it can in terms of its implementation for the next few years just to see things move faster. But there are just a whole range of areas where there are little blockages whether and everyone's well meaning. But the irony of um, well meaning is that the very laws to protect our environment which as I say think they've been reformed uh are blocking protecting the environment for renewable energy zone delivery. So um, the irony of that's not lost but um. Many areas, many people looking at it hence we're quite. The role that we will play will be quite precise and not Jump into an area that's already been filled by the Productivity Commissioner Commission either at federal level or jurisdictional level. Um, we follow that stuff like what Queensland's just come out with, et cetera and it's all seems to be trending in the right direction. We just have to implement it all as fast as possible possible.

Speaker B: There's the big sticks to swing uh national reform level tax planning systems and even at a state of. But there's also. There's a hundred small sticks.

Speaker C: Yes there are that could be swung.

Speaker B: They just need to corral them and there are uh.

Speaker C: I used to always say that in transport uh you mentioned like being policy and regulation. I said there's probably about a thousand mini reforms you can do here to make New South Wales people's lives easier. Let's just get 100 of them done over the next year or two if we can and we'll just keep moving. So I agree with you.

Speaker B: I think the other thing from a um, an IBODY perspective in the role in terms of prioritization and advising government is everybody thinks of the sexy stuff in productivity but there's two Productivity is um, doing the right things and doing things right. The role in making sure we choose the right place to deploy capital and on the highest value projects with the most impact is absolutely crucial. Yes there's tax settings and other things but we don't get. Get uh we have you know there's constrained dollars, it's taxpayers money. Making sure it's spent on the right stuff and then doing those stuff right is so crucial to productivity and I just think it kind of get. Because we do okay at kind of gets ignored as a lever.

Speaker C: You'll, you'll, you'll find uh. It's a bit of a tangent to that but you'll find it with the infrastructure priority list. Even the, the narrative we have there's. We've tried to really balance brand um new expansion projects with, with upgrades to existing as much as possible and really shine a light on that because Treasury's always like seeing that.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Um we've come to the end of the time available and we always ask all of our guests the same question which is um, what's your favorite sort of infrastructure and why?

Speaker C: You know an obvious place to go to would be um Metro networks around the world because I've probably dragged my family onto far too many of them as do many senior transport people. But I do love a Metro and a fast train um in, in any continent. Uh they're all. They're all fantastic. And as, um, I said, like, a lot of. I know a lot of people that do exactly the same thing when they're on holidays, which is sad and glorious in equal measure. So, like, looking at, um, the, uh, metro systems simply for the fact that they put a bit of a cultural pulse on the city. They do have a personality of their own, whether it's tube, Paris, metro, MTR in Hong Kong. I won't list them all because there's too many. But, um, that's just a wonderful thing to do to get a feel.

Speaker B: But you like them in operation or in construction? Like, what's the.

Speaker C: I like to be in operation. As I said to you before, the 10 years worth of milestones and um, and press conferences are very important for progress, but until the first customer's sitting or standing on that service, it means nothing.

Speaker B: So do you prefer stations or trains

Speaker C: split? I think probably. Probably stations for the fact that, um, when we built, when we delivered, uh, beeline for northern beaches, buses, light rail, then metro, um, ergonomically, I hit my head on all three when I got on the first one. Ah. So maybe stations with the cathedral, like, um, stations that we have. Um, but what I said at the start was, favorite piece of infrastructure. Maybe, uh, metros balanced against Olympic sized swimming pools in every country town in this country. One of the most amazing things that, uh, as an asset class, we take for granted. Once, once my, um, my youngest daughter, uh, we got back from, believe it or not, holidaying in Ireland, where my wife's from, and came back through Paris. And I said to her, do you prefer Paris or condo? And she went, condo, of course. And I said, why? And she said, because it's got an Olympic swimming pool. Ah, good, good, good on you. Like. So as an asset for a community asset for small country towns across the country. Just an amazing legacy probably of Melbourne, uh, 1956, et cetera. But they are like, they are now oasis when my Hometown's been about 45 degrees over the last few weeks. Um, and they're just extraordinarily gorgeous.

Speaker B: I think we have a. There's a naming problem though, is because they all say, like, condo Olympics. It should be Olympic size. Swimming pool, tourist driving. They didn't hold the Olympics.

Speaker C: It's a pride thing, though, seeing the word Olympic there, I can tell you.

Speaker B: All right, I think that's a good note to finish on. Tim, thanks for joining us.

Speaker C: Thanks, Adrian. And thanks, Janice.

Speaker B: This episode of Inside Infrastructure was recorded, produced and m researched by Wingman Tan, Isabel Woodward Kirsty Timsons and Baronia Morrison.