After the surprise win by President-elect Donald Trump in the US elections last week, there is great speculation as to what 'making America great again' will translate into.  

In his victory speech on early Wednesday morning, Mr Trump outlined his thoughts:  “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.” 

What was heartening and especially noteworthy was that both presidential candidates identified rebuilding infrastructure as one of the few areas where they both agreed.
 
I was a guest panelist at last week’s ALGA Roads Congress held in Toowoomba where it was stated, among the many excellent papers, that Australia has 75% of its local government roads rated as being in “poor” condition, noting that about 59% are unsealed.
 
Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester focused his speech on the linkage between road conditions and Australia’s road fatalities, the majority of which occur in regional and rural areas. Of these road incidents, around 50% occur at night despite only 20-30% of vehicle trips being at night. The nexus between road trauma incidents and road conditions is just one of the many factors being considered to reduce the national road toll (which is rising). IPWEA has written to the Minister highlighting that appropriate LED street lighting should also be examined as one of the planks to help reduce road incidents.  
 
The Australian Government’s Federal Assistance Grant scheme, the $350m Roads to Recovery (non-competitive) Federal Funding, and the (competitive) funding programs for bridges, freight and regional development, are all clear acknowledgements by this and previous federal governments that Australia has a significant task ahead to redress the funding shortfall needed to maintain this critical transport infrastructure at optimum operating conditions.
 
Australian local government, by and large, does a good job in asset management, within the limits of funding restrictions. Mr Trump’s assessment of the state of infrastructure for the US, whether valid or not, fortunately does not apply to Australia. It would be a national indictment however if continued funding restrictions ever forced us to make these same comments for Australia.  
 
IPWEA’s suite of asset management systems are designed to help councils build their own internal capacity to best practice standards. Underpinned by ISO 55000, the IIMM and the AIFMM, NAM.PLUS and the IPWEA Professional Certificate in Asset Management all build upon one another to present a cohesive and robust asset management system for council staff.  
 
Using these integrated AM services, supplemented by the specific topic Practice Notes ensures that councils are maximizing their resources for the best community outcomes.