Australian Construction Outlook Conference 2026 Building the Next Decade: Navigating Capacity, Costs and New Frontiers in Construction

David is the Managing Director at BIS Oxford Economics and heads the office for Australia and New Zealand. In August 2013 he moved to Sydney to establish the firm and is continuing to grow the business in this region as well as leading key projects within Australia.

Before moving to Australia David worked as part of Oxford Economics’ business development team in London. Prior to joining Oxford Economics he worked for KPMG as a management consultant, specialising in financial risk management including stress testing and scenario analysis. During this time he was also seconded to the main Financial Services regulatory body, the Financial Services Authority (FSA). He completed his degree in Economics at Nottingham University and also studied the chartered institute for securities investment diploma.

Harry Murphy Cruise is the Head of Economic Research and Global Trade at Oxford Economics Australia. He leads the Australian Macroeconomic Service and global trade initiatives, including TradePrism. Harry frequently provides insights to major media outlets, including CNBC, BBC, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal. His research primarily focuses on global trade and investment flows, with particular interest in the challenges and opportunities of economic decoupling.

Harry holds a master’s degree in international and development economics from the Australian National University and a bachelor’s degree in arts and commerce from Monash University. He is a PhD candidate at ANU, exploring the role of China’s diverse households and firms in the country’s economic transition.

Prior to joining Oxford Economics, Harry was the Head of China and Australia Economics at Moody’s Analytics. He was previously responsible for Australian state and territory analysis at Deloitte Access Economics.

Timothy Hibbert leads the property, building, and demographic forecasting at BIS Oxford Economics. He has over 15 years of experience as an industry economist, working across government, consultancy, and subscription services.

Dr Nicholas Fearnley is the Head of Global Construction Forecasting, based in Sydney. Nicholas oversees the teams that produce the various construction, mining, and maintenance studies. He works over the full construction spectrum, and regularly presents and provides commentary for both the construction and mining industries.

Nicholas joined Oxford Economics in 2019 after working at Macromontor, where he was responsible for producing regular Australian building construction forecast reports, and bespoke cost escalation and material demand forecasts.

Prior to joining Macromonitor, Nicholas completed a PhD at the University of Sydney with a thesis titled: “A Critical and Quantitative Analysis of the Relationship between Informal Institutions and Economic Development.” He was awarded the Walter Noel Gillies Prize for best PhD thesis in Economics, and his thesis was accepted without edits.

Nicholas has undergraduate degrees in both Accounting and Applied Finance from Macquarie University, and a first class honours degree in Accounting from the University of Sydney with a thesis titled: “Culture and the Measurement Decision Offered by Investment Property”.

Maree is a senior economist in the property and building forecasting team at Oxford Economics Australia, analysing demographic trends, housing markets and policy shifts. Having worked in industry economics for 10 years, Maree’s primary responsibility is residential property forecasts which are distributed through our subscription products, most notably the recently released ResRadar.

Adrian has over 23 years of economic analysis and consulting experience with Oxford Economics Australia, focusing on the infrastructure, building, maintenance and mining industries. Adrian has undertaken a wide range of consultancy projects for the public and private sector based on his detailed understanding of construction, mining and maintenance markets, their drivers and outlooks, the range of organisations operating in this space and the issues they face.

This work includes deeper industry liaison, contractor and competitive analysis, pipeline analysis, demand and cost escalation forecasting, and industry capacity and capability projects for the public and private sector. He is the lead author of major reports but also undertakes briefings and workshops for senior management, board members and industry associations, leads in-depth stakeholder consultation, and facilitates and chairs roundtables between government and industry.