Description

Geoscience Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Cultures, and to elders past and present.

About us
Geoscience Australia is Australia's pre-eminent public sector geoscience organisation. We are the nation's trusted advisor on the geology and geography of Australia. We apply science and technology to describe and understand the Earth for the benefit of Australia. We apply our diverse professional expertise, our deep and trusted knowledge, our national-scale Earth observation infrastructure and our strong partnerships, to the opportunities and challenges that face our nation.

Our culture
Our strength lies in our people, including our diversity in backgrounds, skills and experiences, and the way we work together to respond to the emerging needs of our work. We value diversity in gender, backgrounds, culture, and experiences of our employees and are committed to providing an inclusive workplace culture that ensures everyone has equal opportunity to contribute, participate and progress. Applications from people who reflect this diversity are encouraged.
Our workplace is committed to the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and offers a variety of flexible working arrangements to enhance flexibility, including remote working arrangements.

What we can offer you
When you work at Geoscience Australia you will have access to a range of benefits and the opportunity to experience a workplace culture that truly values and promotes diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging. To learn more about our competitive salary, free onsite parking, generous flexible working arrangements and the role you can play in growing our culture click here.
 
Our team
The Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) is a joint initiative of the Australian and New Zealand Governments that provides Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) services for Australia and New Zealand. Geoscience Australia as the Australian Government lead agency, is working in collaboration with Toit Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand on the development, deployment, and operation of SouthPAN, the first SBAS in the Southern Hemisphere.
SouthPAN is a Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) comprised of reference stations, telecommunications infrastructure, computing centres, signal generators, and satellites that provide improved positioning and navigation services in Australia, New Zealand, and its maritime region.
Further information on the project can be found at https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/positioning-navigation/positioning-australia/about-the-program/southpan. 

Requirements

The role
The SouthPAN Contract Manager is a role in the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN), a joint project and capability between the Australian and New Zealand governments. SouthPAN is seeking an experienced Contract Manager to work at Geoscience Australia and working closely with project partner Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

In this role you will:

• Contract management activities for the SouthPAN Prime contract, satellite payload contracts, and other SouthPAN client-side contracts (including legal, probity, engineering and security).
• Providing expert advice on best practice, identifying and developing mitigation strategies for risks associated with procurement and contracting activities, analysing contract performance.
• Developing procurement documentation and approvals, and contract management artefacts.
• Supporting the SouthPAN team by providing knowledge transfer regarding relevant parts of the SouthPAN contract suite, to inform and expedite specific activities.
• Building and sustaining relationships with key stakeholders at the strategic and operational level.
• Providing commercial experience and business acumen working on large acquisitions and/or sustainment projects.
• Managing staff and providing leadership and guidance across the team to ensure the objectives of the project can be met. 
• The role will report to and work closely with the SouthPAN Commercial Contract Manager.
  
  There may be a requirement for the role to travel to New Zealand and remote locations in Australia for short periods of time.
  
  

To be successful in the role you will:

• Establish contract governance for SouthPAN contracts in relation to stakeholder engagement strategy, oversight, systems, processes, decision making and reporting;
• Develop and implement a contract management plan and additional contract management guidance processes for managing complex infrastructure projects;
• Develop and implement risk management plan(s) – liaising with the engineering and project management teams, as necessary;
• Coordinate legal and probity advice for contract management while ensuring suppliers meet their work health and safety, security and land access obligations;
• Establish performance management strategy for measuring, monitoring, and assessment against agreed contract performance measures to enable early discovery of performance issues and timely response to resolving issues;
• Monitor and assess deliverables to enable acceptance and achieve contract outcomes;
• Engage and sustain collaborative engagement mechanisms with the contractor(s). Ensure contract changes are dealt with as contract variations, support
• Contractor adherence to the agreed budget, ensure roles and responsibilities are well understood, support the organisation's compliance with the contract including Government Furnished Elements, serve as a single point of contact for all contractual matters; and
• Direct and manage the administrative activities undertaken to support day-to-day contract activities, meet legislative requirements for records management, and establish an audit trail to meet transparency requirements.

Required skills, knowledge, experience and/or qualifications

• Experience in contracts/commercial management
• Personally driven to be action oriented and outcome focused,
• A thorough understanding of Australian Government public service procurement methods
• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills with ability to negotiate and build relationships with stakeholders,
• High level organisational skills, self-drive and initiative with the ability to influence others to achieve results and business objectives, and
• Demonstrated experience working across both public and private organisations, work experience across defence, aerospace or government sector highly desirable.

Salary
We encourage candidates with the right technical skills to apply, even if their salary expectations fall outside the typical bracket. The delegate is open to considering expertise and experience for salary negotiations with the successful applicant.

Are you unsure about applying?
Did you know that a Hewlett Packard internal report found that men apply for jobs when they meet an average of 60 per cent of the job requirements? Women and other people from diverse backgrounds tend to only apply when they check every box. If you think you have what it takes, but don’t necessarily meet every single point on what we are looking for, please still apply or get in touch with the contact officer to learn more about the role.

To Apply

Please visit thecareers pageof our website to submit your application via our e-Recruit system. Your application should include:

• Your resume (no more than 3 pages)
• A brief statement (no more than 1000 words) demonstrating your specific transferable skills, experience and capabilities related to the role and the value you would bring to Geoscience Australia.

If you have any questions regarding the role, please contact Jess Costello on (02) 6249 5923. 

To learn more about applying for roles within the Australian Public Services please review, ‘Applying for an APS job: cracking the code’.

Eligibility 
To be eligible to apply for this position you must meet the below eligibility criteria.
   

• Be an Australian Citizen at the closing date of application.
• The successful applicant must be able to obtain, hold and maintain a security clearance of an appropriate level relevant to this role.
• Commencement of employment is subject to the successful applicant undergoing and satisfying pre- employment screening, which includes a police history check.

RecruitAbility
RecruitAbility applies to this vacancy. Under the RecruitAbility scheme you will be invited to participate in further assessment activity for the vacancy if you choose to apply under the scheme; declare you have a disability; and meet the minimum requirements for the position. For more information please visit the Australian Public Service Commission website.

Hearing or speech impaired applicants are invited to use the National Relay Service by contacting 133 677 and requesting to be connected with our Recruitment team on 02 6249 9777 in order to obtain selection documentation.

Technical Assistance
If you require technical assistance, call Human Resources on (02) 6249 9777. 

A merit list/pool may be created from this process. If you are successful for the merit pool, your details may be shared with other Australian Public Service agencies unless you choose not to have your details disclosed.