The construction sector: Will anything change? By Bassam Maghza The start of another year and I wonder what this new decade holds for the construction sector. I am heartened by the actions that the Government and private industry are taking to address (what has been described as) a dysfunctional sector. In particular, I am referring to the Government's work in trying to transform the sector through the Transformation Plan developed by the Construction Sector Accord (Accord) and the support that the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission (Infrastructure Commission) will provide to public sector agencies in procuring and delivering major infrastructure projects. However, I wonder, as others have, whether anything will change at all. I don't commit this thought to paper lightly. Everyone in the sector wants to point to a success story and wants to boast about 'on time' and 'on budget' projects. The challenges that the sector faces are immense requiring a concerted effort by all sector participants over a long and sustained period of time. It will require all industry participants to mature in their approach and gain each other's trust to move away from an adversarial to a collaborative relationship. The change will not happen overnight. The Transformation Plan has outlined some steps the sector will need to take to achieve this level of maturity. Last year, the Infrastructure Transactions Unit (ITU) (which now forms part of the Infrastructure Commission) commissioned an independent review of the use of the New Zealand Standard (NZS) Conditions of Contract for Building and Civil Engineering Construction in local and central government (public sector) initiated infrastructure projects, including the use of special conditions of contract. The findings of the review were delivered in a report (An examination of issues associated with the use of NZS Conditions of Contract) of August 2019 (Report) the purpose of which was to assist the ITU in its role to lift the performance of New Zealand’s public and private sectors in procuring and delivering major infrastructure projects. The Report's principal finding was that there is a 'culture of mistrust' between the public and private sectors which manifests itself in the approach to procurement, contracting (including unfair transfer of risk), and the construction methods used. Ultimately, this lack of trust is the overarching reason that construction sector parties add extensive special conditions. No one involved in the sector will be surprised by this finding. The main reason for the lack of trust between the public and private sectors was summarised in the Report as follows: "The industry does not trust that the public sector has the skills and experience to appropriately procure and deliver major infrastructure projects. Industry does not believe that the public sector always follows its procurement rules and does not trust it to carry out a fair and transparent procurement process. The public sector is concerned about non-delivery and cost blowouts. This has led to modified contracts that place unreasonable levels of risk on the contractor contributing to unsustainability." Essentially contractors (private sector) consider the developers of projects (public sector) have an unspoken focus on lowest price and transferring risk to the contractor. Further, there is a view that public sector procurement processes tend to be undertaken before they are sufficiently developed (forcing the contractor to make assumptions) and