National President’s Address – National Excellence in Building & Construction Awards

Hedley Davis, National President, Master Builders Australia
Opening Address
National Excellence in Building & Construction Awards Gala Dinner

*Check against delivery*

Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the National Board of Master Builders Australia welcome to the 2018 National Excellence in Building and Construction Awards.

Thank you for coming, and for coming in such numbers. There are around 550 of you here tonight. This a tribute to the strength of Master Builders and the prestige of the National Excellence Awards.

Tonight is about you. It’s about us and it’s about our industry.

You are all here because recognition of your prowess by your peers is at the pinnacle of what it means to be a Master Builder.

All of you are here tonight as National Finalists – a massive achievement in itself and one should engender immense pride and prestige.  Your presence is the culmination of more than 55 regional and state and territory awards throughout the year.

You are also here because you are members of the Master Builders Movement, a national network of Master Builders Associations in each state and territory and with a National Office to stand up for your interests to the politicians in Canberra. With an increasing complex and unstable political environment this is more important than ever.

Master Builders 32,000 members build prosperity in every city, town and region it is the only member Association that speaks on behalf of all three sectors in our industry.

And the best of all three are here tonight. Whether it’s hospitals or centres of learning our commercial builder members are second to none. Whether it’s display homes, project homes of apartments our residential builders are the best in the business. And whether it’s outback bridges or sports stadiums our civil infrastructure contractors are industry leaders.

We can’t forget that you are as here tonight as major contributors to the nation’s second largest industry.

Every day you are making a vital contribution to the $200 billion building and construction industry. Every day you are creating jobs in the industry that employs more than one million Australians. Here tonight are the best of our small, medium and large building businesses that together are playing a major role in strengthening our national economy.

Before moving on to the real purpose of tonight, I want to acknowledge some special guests whose presence highlights the strong relationships that Master Builders Australia and Master Builders SA has with government on your behalf:

• Senator Hon. David Fawcett, the Assistant Minister for Defence.
• The Hon David Pisoni MP, South Australia’s Minister for Industry and Skills, and tonight representing the Premier Steven Marshall.
• The Hon Stephan Knoll MP, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government.

I now want to call your attention to some incredibly special members of the Master Builders Family, our Life Members and four new Life Members in particular, three of whom are with is tonight.

Each of our new Life Members has each spent more decade as a member of the National Board with three serving as National Presidents. Let me introduce you to:

• Dan Perkins, Manging Director of the Perkins Group, Immediate Past President of MBA. Dan is also an institution WA where he served as President of Master Builders WA.
• Peter Kennedy, a former CEO of Hansen Yuncken, former National President of Master Builders Australia.
• Peter Millington is an institution of the industy in Newcastle and is a long serving contributor to the MBA Board.
• Scott Beynon, whose contribution to Master Builders has been equally stellar, in unable to be with us tonight.

Finally and by no means least I want to thank our Principal Sponsors Toyota and Cbus in addition to our Major Sponsors for their strong support of Master Builders.

And now please join me in enjoying the celebration of the nation’s best builders.