Hayley Morgan

Logan to Gold Coast Faster Rail: What Property Owners Need to Know The Queensland Government’s Logan to Gold Coast Faster Rail project is a major piece of transport infrastructure aimed at easing congestion and improving rail reliability between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. While the project promises long-term benefits for the region, it may also...

Outcome-Based Procurement: Paying for Results, Not Inputs Many local government contracts still focus on inputs: hours worked, activities completed, materials supplied. While familiar, this approach does not always deliver the outcomes councils and communities actually care about. Outcome-based procurement offers a different approach. Rather than paying solely for effort, councils link performance and payment to...

Beyond the Bench: How 2025 Court Decisions Are Reshaping Development in 2026 Throughout 2025 the Planning and Environment Court delivered a series of decisions that will influence the approach of developers, consultants and local governments in the year ahead. The judgments cover a wide range of issues from minor change assessments to infrastructure charging, subdivision...

Queensland Planning Reforms: What the Planning Amendment Regulation 2025 Means The Queensland Government has recently introduced the Planning Amendment Regulation 2025, which updates the Planning Regulation 2017 (Qld). These changes aim to improve housing supply, streamline approvals for essential education infrastructure and strengthen safety and design standards. The amendments focus on four key areas: shared...

Early Market Engagement: Getting Ahead of the Tender For many councils, procurement still begins at the point the tender is released. By that stage, scope, risk allocation, evaluation criteria and contract structure are often already locked in — leaving little room to respond to market capability, pricing realities or innovation. Early market engagement (EME) challenges...

Collaborative and Shared Procurement Models: Delivering Scale Without Losing Control Across New South Wales, councils are facing growing pressure to deliver more with less. Rising costs, constrained budgets, skills shortages and market volatility are forcing councils to rethink how procurement is planned and delivered. In this environment, collaborative and shared procurement models are gaining renewed...

Procurement Planning Under the IP&R Framework — The Missing Link: Why integrating procurement into council planning cycles is critical for transparency, efficiency and value Introduction: The Hidden Disconnect in Local Government Planning In New South Wales, every council operates under the Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) Framework — a model designed to connect community aspirations...

Queensland Procurement Policy 2026: How it Operates — and What It Means for Queensland Government Agencies The Queensland Procurement Policy 2026 (QPP 2026) represents the most substantial re-design of Queensland’s procurement framework in decades. Commencing 1 January 2026 (with the incentive component of the Procurement Assurance Model commencing 1 January 2027), the new policy shifts...

Local Economic Development Through Strategic Procurement: How NSW councils can turn everyday purchasing into long-term community impact Introduction: Procurement as an Economic Lever Every year, local governments across New South Wales spend billions of dollars on goods, services and infrastructure. Yet too often, that spending flows out of the region — missing the opportunity to...

From Compliance to Capability in NSW Local Government Procurement Introduction: A Turning Point for Local Government Procurement in NSW Procurement in New South Wales local government has long been seen as a compliance exercise — a checklist of quotations, thresholds, and tender procedures under the Local Government Act 1993 (NSW) and Local Government (General) Regulation...

Strategic Enabler — Strengthening Council Capability Across NSW Over the coming weeks Muscat Tanzer will be turning our attention from Western Australia to New South Wales and delivering an article Series we have called Procurement as a Strategic Enabler – Strengthening Council Capability Across NSW. Procurement within NSW local government has historically focused on compliance —...

What the Upcoming Queensland Procurement Policy Means for Local Government As always, the draft Queensland Procurement Policy (QPP) 2026 does not apply to local governments, including councils. For many councils, this may suggest that the policy is largely irrelevant to their day-to-day procurement operations under the Local Government Act 2009 and Local Government Regulation 2012....