Week Commencing Monday, July 4, 2016 • First Published in 1985

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FORMER Southern Tablelands builder andnow bridge construction specialist BruceMullaney has been turning heads with his newway of building bridges.

He worked as a residential builder for 30years, and after working in modular buildingin both Australia and China, saw a hugeopportunity for improvement across the wholeconstruction industry.

In 2012, Mr Mullaney quit building andfounded the company Lifting Point to developand commercialise his inventions. Workingfrom his laptop, enlisting the help of his broth-er in law and sons, raising investment throughsupportive friends and colleagues and withassistance from carefully selected advisors, helaid the groundwork for growing his enter-prise into a profitable venture.

Amongst all of Mr Mullaney’s inventions,the one that stood out was his modular bridgesystem, which promises to make bridge build-ing quicker, easier and potentially cheaper.

He built up partnerships and connectionswith major Australian and international busi-nesses such as the Australian ReinforcingCompany (ARC), the Australian engineeringfirm SMEC, and Toyota Tsusho Australasia.He has recieved support from state and feder-al government departments includingAustrade, the NSW Department of Trade,Infrastructure and Investment, through tolocal MPs, and has recieved federal researchand development grants.

“We’d been working on pre-form concretesystems where the reinforcing supports theformwork,” Mr Mullaney told Town &

Country Magazine.“Originally I was looking at manufacturing

them for Africa and India and then the NSWTrade Department asked me to do up a designfor the Australian market. We joined up withengineering firm SMEC and put together adesign.”

Steve Dunlop, Manager of Projects atToyota Tsusho Australasia, explained theirrole in the project.

“Bruce initially approached us to getinvolved on the logistics side and materialsupply side,” Mr Dunlop said.

“When we sat down with Bruce and wentthrough his innovation, we got quite excitedthat we could provide quite a lot more thanjust materials supply. We took the role on

board after discussions with Lifting Point thatwe could assist them to commercialise theproduct and bring it to market, so that’s whatwe’ve attempted to do.”

Mr Dunlop also mentioned that this formof bridge building was much quicker andmuch more cost effective and created less dis-turbance to the environment because therewas no need to build a scaffold,etc.

“You don’t need the workers to get underthe bridge at any time, its also pre-engineeredand pre-certified so when you get it to site youdon’t need a lot of engineers to be able to putit in place- you can use local labour, etc whichI think is quite appealing to a lot of municipal-ities,” he said.

Continued page 2

Bruce’s innovative bridge buildOFFICIAL: Federal Member for Hume, Angus Taylor (centre) at the official opening of the Lifting Point bridge near Marulan last Monday. Mr Taylor is joined by (left to right) TimChapman (SMEC Engineering), Strategic Officer Lifting Point, David Henderson, State Member for Goulburn Pru Goward, Andrew McKnoulty (ARC), Bruce Mullaney (LfitingPoint founder) and Kimura San (Chief Dvisional Officer, Toyota Tsusho);INSET: The bridge has a simple construction and can be constructed in a matter of hours, rather than weeks.

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2 - Town and Country Magazine, Week Commencing Monday, July 4, 2016 www.townandcountrymagazine.com.au

Rural News

IT’S time to feed our native birds-but not withbread, seeds or birdfeeders. Let your gardendo the feeding in Goulburn. Winter is a toughtime for Aussie animals like honeyeaters,which rely on flower nectar for food, becauseflowers are a lot harder to come by.

“Honeyeaters are a part of life here inAustralia,” said Mr Ian Darbyshire, CEO ofthe Foundation for National Parks andWildlife.

“They brighten up our days with theirimpressive colours, calls and personalities.Look out for Eastern Spinebills, RedWattlebirds, and New Holland Honeyeaters inGoulburn this month as they move closer intotown to find more food. Honeyeaters are most

active in the early mornings when the flowersare full of nectar. These birds crave a sugarybreakfast to kick-start the day, just like manyof us do. With the effects of climate changealready being felt in the delayed seasons andsevere weather conditions we’re experiencing,it’s more important than ever to help out ournative animals where we can. For our hon-eyeaters, the best thing to do is be mindfulwhen adding plants to your garden.”

Tips for living with honeyeaters* Feeding sugared water and other sweet

drinks to birds is a big no-no as the highlyprocessed sugar is as bad for the birds as it isfor us.

* Birdbaths can be a lifesaver for birds,especially during dry periods, so install one ina nice protected spot in your garden. Clean itregularly and keep it filled with fresh water.

* Rather than just planting lots of big,showy native flowers like banksias and largegrevillias, try planting flowers with smallflowers like kangaroo paw and spider grevilliato help out the smaller, more timid hon-eyeaters.

“Most Aussie honeyeaters help your plantsreproduce, by carrying pollen from flower toflower as they look for nectar,” said Mr

Darbyshire.“Another benefit is that they’ll also eat

plenty of insects they find in your garden andkeep your bug numbers down. Australia ishome to over half the world’s honeyeaters,with the rest found mainly in New Guinea.That’s a huge amount of endemic species thatjust aren’t found anywhere else. Not allAustralian honeyeaters are thriving. TheRegent Honeyeater is one of Australia’s rarestbirds. The main threat facing threatened hon-eyeaters is changes to their habitat. All themore reason to grow suitable habitat in yourown garden, to help replace what they havelost.”

The Foundation for National Parks andWildlife is calling on people from Goulburn toshare their stories of how they have helpedtheir local honeyeaters and other animalsthrough simple changes to their gardens, suchas planting natives or installing nestboxes.

Backyard Buddies is a free program run byAustralia’s Foundation for National Parks andWildlife. Each month, you get a BackyardBuddies email (B-mail) with tips to make yourbackyard inviting and safe for native animals.Honeyeaters featured in the June edition of B-mail.

SWEET: A Brown Honeyeater prepares to feed on the nectar from a native Australianflower. (Photo: Francesco Veronesi)

Honeyeaters needGoulburn’s flowers

Building bridges comes naturally to BruceFrom page 1

ARC also gave major support to the projectby supplying all the reinforcing steel andassembly for the bridge prototype.

With all these areas covered, the finalpiece of the puzzle was to find somewhere toput his new invention. So Mr Mullaney decid-ed to locate it at his property on Tiyces Laneat Carrick.

Federal Member for Hume, Angus Taylor,

was proud to be invited to the bridge launch. “We as Australians should be paying trib-

ute to innovators and engineers such as MrMullaney for the work that they do,” he said.

State Member for Goulburn Pru Gowardwas also extremely impressed with the proj-ect.

“NSW is now undertaking a huge rebuild-ing program for its bridges and there wasunfortunately 16 years where not much hap-pened in the bush, so we’ve been playing

catch-up,” she said. “We are always looking for ways to make

this program more cost effective, and MrMullaney’s project is an example of this. It isalso much faster. We would love to see thiscompany establish itself in Goulburn, you areon the best freeway in Australia, you have agreat rail network for shipping product andyou are but one and a half hours from a majorport. So there are many reasons why this proj-ect works.”

OFFICIALLY OPEN:Federal Member forHume Angus Taylorcuts the ribbon to offi-cially open the bridgewith AustralianReinforcing Company(ARC)'s AndrewMcKnoulty (far left) ,Tim Chapman (SMECEngineering), LiftingPoint CEO BruceMullaney, Lifting PointStrategic Officer DavidHenderson, StateMember for Goulburn,Pru Goward; andKimura San, ChiefDvisional Officer,Toyota Tsusho. (Photo:Antony Dubber)

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