CCF Victorian Bulletin Spring Edition 2017 | Page 7

FROM THE CEO
GENERAL CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT...
A TIMELY REVIEW BY STANDARDS AUSTRALIA
T
here are currently two suites of
Australian Standards covering content
on general conditions of contract; i.e.
AS 2124 (1992) and AS 4000 (1997).
AS 2124 continues to be used by
government agencies, with the private
sector including local government and
statutory authorities (i.e. water authorities
and VEDN); using AS 4000.
Primarily the difference between the two
contracts is the alignment of risk allocation
between parties and CCF members that I
have engaged with in recent months, have
reported experiencing extensive variations
by clients to the standard AS 2124 and AS
4000 General conditions of contract.
These amendments tend to be variations
with a heavy “Principal” bias covering
additional payments, Extensions of Time
(EOT’s), warranting of the accuracy of
drawings and specifications, security of
payments and also changes to Latent
Conditions / Site Conditions, that increases
the risk on contractors with respect to
unknown physical conditions, which may
affect the performance of works.
A recent example of these changes is
the tenders released by Gippsland Water
for the GW448 Morwell South West Sewer
Upgrade. Extensive variations were made to
the standard AS 4000 General Conditions
of Contract, which resulted in CCF obtaining
further legal opinion and engage with
Gippsland Water in regards to these
proposed amendments.
It is fair to say that there is confusion in
the industry on the appropriate application
of each of the standard contracts with
users of AS 2124 suite implementing many
of the conditions of contract dealing with
project management, managing contractor
or maintenance of assets used in AS 4000
suite of contracts.
There is a need to update both AS
4000 and AS 2124 to ensure consistency of
wording in each of the documents across
each of the suites as well as the need to
update the documents to incorporate
changes to modern business practices and
best practices in contract conditions.
Standards Australia are currently
conducting a review of the suite of AS
2124 (1992) and AS 4000 (1997) General
conditions of contract with the proposed
development of AS 11000. This review has
been reported for some time but we are
now starting to see traction with Standards
Australia (SA) hosting a roundtable
discussion in late October / early November
2017. CCF has been invited to attend,
together with a broad spectrum of key
organisations, to consider a new proposal
for the development of AS 11000 General
conditions of contract.
CCF Victoria Board member, Bob Beck,
will participate in the roundtable, which
will provide CCF the opportunity to discuss
and refine the scope of the project, as well
as to develop agreement on the potential
updates. Bob is well qualified to represent
our interests at this forum with extensive
contracts and adjudication experience in
the civil construction sector. As Contracts
Manager for the Winslow Group, Bob
is a graded arbitrator and accredited
adjudicator in Victoria, while also being
a registered adjudicator with QBCC in
Queensland.
We will keep members abreast of
developments in regards to this review.
See you at the President’s Lunch for
the launch. n
John Kilgour
CEO CCF Victorian Branch
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2. Contact referred legal panel member/s as a priority.
THE BULLETIN – Civil Contractors Federation VIC
3. Provide relevant details of crisis to senior member of staff.
4. Contact with CCF is made as soon as possible.
SPRING 2017 7