April  2026

The discipline to deliver

Jonathan Cartledge, Chief Executive Officer, Consult Australia

Jonathan Cartledge, CEO of Consult Australia with Adam Copp,
CEO of Infrastructure Australia, in a fireside chat during CollabX.

“Geopolitics now sits inside the infrastructure equation.” This sharp observation comes from my New Zealand counterpart, ACE NZ’s Chief Executive Helen Davidson, who recently attended FIDIC’s Global Leadership Forum in Athens.

National security and defence priorities are driving infrastructure policy and investment decisions across nations “and we can’t ignore the significance of this shift,” Helen says in an opinion piece she’s penned for this month’s Consulting Matters.

The world has changed and nowhere is this more obvious than in the Australian Government’s 2026 National Defence Strategy, released this month.

The assessment is blunt: “We have entered a more dangerous and unpredictable era,” the strategy notes. The response is just as direct: greater self-reliance, stronger sovereign capability, and whole-of-nation preparedness.

The numbers outlined in the Integrated Investment Program are eye-watering. Australia will spend a record $425 billion on defence over the next decade, rising to 3% of GDP by 2033.

Capability to deliver at this scale doesn’t materialise on command. It draws from the same finite pool of resources – people, materials, capital – that underpins every road, rail line, precinct and project.

Those in the room at CollabX in March were realistic. The task ahead is vast. Nuclear submarine infrastructure alone was described as “next level”, with more than $60 billion in capital works ahead. 

Speaker after speaker shared a similar message. Our ambitions can only be achieved if we pull together in a very practical way: aligning pipelines, sharing capability, and being far more disciplined about how projects are scoped, procured and delivered.

This month’s Consulting Matters also shares the Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2026 Annual Oration, delivered by Infrastructure NSW Chair Graham Bradley AO. Graham pulled no punches when he said: “Approving things too slowly, delivering them too late and at higher cost is just as much a drag on national productivity as investing billions of dollars in building the wrong projects or building the right projects prematurely.” 

That’s the test in front of us. We need better front-end planning, smarter procurement and a more realistic approach to risk – and we make this point plainly in our pre-budget submission, which is worth a read ahead of next month’s federal budget.

Our cost certainty paper, out in May, will sharpen this point further. In an uncertain world, cost certainty is as much about trust as it is about budgets.

Against this backdrop, the timing is perfect to welcome Dean Spence as our new Defence Manager. Dean has spent his career working at the intersection of defence, government and industry – translating policy intent into real projects, real investment, real capability. That translation layer is exactly what the moment requires.

The strategy is set. The funding is committed. The ambition is clear. Now we must work together to deliver with the discipline it demands.