Page 51 - Australian Defence Magazine July-August 2022

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INDIGENOUS ADVANTAGE IDIC 51
WHO IS IDIC?
The Indigenous Defence and Infrastructure Consortium (iDiC) is an Indigenous-owned and Indigenous-controlled business supporting around 120 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses through the delivery of long-term defence and infrastructure projects.
Since its inception in 2016, iDiC has contributed over $175 million in social and economic value to Indigenous businesses, people, and communities through its direct supply chain.
“Our vision is pretty simple, and that’s to break the back of poverty of Indigenous communities by developing entrepre- neurs,” George Mifsud, Director of iDiC explained to ADM. “For us, what’s going to break the back of poverty, what’s go- ing to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, is creating financial and economic indepen- dence for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
“Jobs won’t do that alone – what we need to do is create inter-generational wealth, and to do that, we need to create thriving, sustainable businesses.”
iDiC’s model as a supply chain aggregator and account manager is simple. In most cases, iDiC is engaged by a cli- ent as the contracting entity, and then delivers services via its suite of suppliers (Indigenous-owned businesses) whom it engages on a sub-contract basis. iDiC oversees the de-
LEFT: Adam Goodes, CEO iDiC and Craig Lee, MD Beca Australia signing the Strategic Relationship Agreement
livery of the program, while at the same time providing coaching and mentoring as well as back-of-house support and services to its Indigenous partners.
“This makes it easier for a partner like Beca because they only have to onboard one Indigenous organisation, being iDiC, but then have access to over 100 Indigenous busi- nesses that could potentially be delivering services on their contracts,” Mifsud said.
Equally, iDiC and their Indigenous business partners gain access to contracts which they would not have otherwise.
“When we partner with a true partner like Beca, it brings us opportunities that we would not normally get access to our- selves directly,” Mifsud said. “Most of iDiC’s clients are Tier 1 prime contractors, and we’re part of their solution. This means that while we don’t often work directly with Department of Defence on certain things, we’re working with Department of Defence when its being led by a partner like Beca.”
IMPLEMENTING THE PARTNERSHIP
With the signing of the agreement in January, Beca became one of twelve iDiC strategic partners.
According to David Barter, Business Director – Defence and National Security at Beca, the partnership will focus its efforts across four key pillars: partnering to enhance procurement and supply chain, partnering to strengthen business development, partnering to implement Beca’s Rec- onciliation Action Plan, and finally, partnering to educate.
“They’re all very important pillars for us, and we’ve iden- tified a champion for each within the
Beca business, to implement each as-
pect,” Barter said to ADM.
One of the initial projects under the agreement involves iDiC partner Ori- gin Project Management (OriginPM) providing project management services to Beca for the Defence Aviation Safety Authority Regulation’s 139 (DASR.139) Aerodrome Transition program.
Under DASR.139, all Defence aero- dromes are required to be classified as Certified or Non-Certified and togeth- er Beca and OriginPM will assist De- fence meet certification requirements for each one.
“SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 2016, IDIC HAS CONTRIBUTED OVER $175 MILLION IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VALUE TO INDIGENOUS BUSINESSES, PEOPLE, AND COMMUNITIES”
“The DASR Aerodrome Transition project is a long-term program identifying the airworthiness obligations of air- fields – looking at the work that’s needed to achieve aero- drome certification where required,” Barter said. “It’s very much a joint team [between iDiC and Beca]. Daniel Join- bee [Managing Director of OriginPM] has desk space in our office, working with the team hand in hand. We don’t see Daniel as a sub-contractor, nor are we engaging iDiC to meet IPP obligations.”
“Importantly, Beca really recognised the capability skill set that we brought to the project,” Mifsud echoed. “It wasn’t tokenistic – they recognised that they needed to bring in- dustry along, with subject matter expertise, and as an Indig- enous RAAF veteran Daniel has fantastic experience.”
“The DASR project has been excellent, it’s been a