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Between a Rock and Hard Place

25-27 May 2023, UIuru Meeting Place, Northern Territory

30,000 years is an almost unimaginable length of time.

Yet that is the period over which the Anangu people have been meeting and telling stories at and around Kata Tjuta and Uluru.

With that continuing connection to country in mind and with respect to the elders of the Anangu people (and the first nations people throughout this wide brown land) past, present and emerging, the Society of Construction Law Australia calls for abstracts so that we may gather to tell our own stories at the 2023 National Conference.

The SoCLA Conference Subcommittee is calling for papers for its 2023 National Conference to be held at the Uluru Meeting Place, Northern Territory on 25-27 May 2023. 

As we write this call for abstracts the construction industry, indeed the economy more broadly,  finds itself between the “Rock” of the pandemic and the “Hard Place” of rising interest rates, and inflation. 

So it is germane that we will meet for the 10^th annual conference of the Society of Construction Law Australia at the base of the world’s best known (but sadly not largest) rock: Uluru.  

In that context the SoCLA Conference Subcommittee is calling for abstracts for papers to be submitted for one of the following streams:

• White bread or multi-grain? Improving the diversity of the construction and Legal workforces has been on squarely on the agenda for some time now.  Papers in this stream should address these issues, how are the construction and legal industries succeeding?  What improvements can still be made?  Papers in this stream might address diversity by reference to one or more dimensions be that ethnicity, gender, ability or sexuality, there is room for diversity in our discussion of improving diversity!  
• Bigger is better, right? Since time immemorial governments have embarked on “once in a generation” infrastructure projects as a means of building their way out of recessions.  But at what cost, legally.  Papers in this stream should address the short and long-term legal consequences of the giga infrastructure projects that have been recently completed or are currently in procurement stages. 
• The supply chains that bind us: In the last 18 months we have all been told that that something we have ordered or want to achieve has been delayed because of supply chain pressures in the last.  Papers in this stream should seek to identify the causes of those pressures and the legal solutions (both prospective and retrospective) that might release some of that pressure.  While insolvencies haven’t been perhaps as frequent as expected, this is the stream where discussion of insolvency in the construction industry should land. 
• Forewarned is forearmed: now the pandemic has passed us by (we hope) it is time for reflection and learning.  What lessons has the construction industry learned about the role of law in construction that can (and should) be carried forward so that the next economic shock lands on shock absorbers. 

The questions posed above only cover a small sample of the myriad issues the SoCLA Conference Subcommittee hope to see addressed this year.  However, all abstract submittals should carefully consider and focus on the role that construction law will (or should) play as we seek answers to these questions. 

While the preference is to have papers in the streams described above, the SoCLA Conference Subcommittee reserves the right to allow abstracts into the conference that are within the general scope of the conference even if they do not talk directly to one of the above streams. 

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ABSTRACTS CLOSING DATE HAVE BEEN
EXTENDED UNTIL 5PM WST ON FRIDAY 10 MARCH 2023

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ABSTRACT GUIDELINES

All abstracts must be submitted by completing the below form before the closing date, Friday 10 March 2023 at 5pm WST to be included in the reviewing process.

DATES AND DEADLINES:

• Abstracts Submission Deadline: 10 March 2023
• Notification of Abstracts to Authors: 31 March 2023
• Presenter Registration Deadline: 14 April 2023
• Final Papers Due: 12 May 2023

Abstracts and/or papers received after the advertised closing date and time may not be accepted in the SoCLA Conference Subcommittee's absolute discretion.

All abstracts submitted will be subject to a blind peer review process which will guide the committee on acceptance of abstracts for presentation. Peer reviewers will assess abstracts against the following criteria:

• Academic merit of the work;
• Originality of the work;
• Completeness of the information, including the description of results;
• Relevance to the conference theme; and
• Appropriateness for presentation (eg: not a company ‘advertisement’). 

Please email admin@scl.org.au should you have any questions in relation to this event. We look forward to receiving your submission soon.

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ABSTRACT SUBMISSION FORM