A Perth rate is not a Kimberley rate
Most estimates for Kimberley work are built somewhere else, from rate libraries assembled somewhere else. They are not wrong by a uniform margin that can be covered with a regional loading applied across the board. They are wrong in different directions in different trade categories, and the loading hides which is which.
Plant-intensive work prices differently to trade labour. A FIFO subcontractor prices differently to an operator based in Broome or Kununurra. A rate build that does not separate those categories will be wrong in some of them, and wrong in the direction that costs the contractor — because the categories that get underestimated are the ones nobody had local information about.
The four things below are what actually moves a Kimberley price. They are the four the estimate is built from.
Mobilisation
- Getting crews, plant and materials to site, and the standing time while that happens
- Accommodation and camp costs where there is no town within reach of the work
- Site establishment on ground that may have no power, water, communications or formed access
- Demobilisation priced at the start, not discovered at the end — it is a cost the programme has to carry twice
Seasonality
- The wet season is a programme constraint before it is a weather event — earthworks, compaction and access all stop or slow
- The workable window determines what can be committed to, and a programme that ignores it prices delay it will then have to claim for
- Shutdowns, cyclone contingency and the lead times that lengthen around them
- Rates negotiated in the dry do not always hold in the wet, and the estimate should say which is assumed
Haulage
- Freight from Perth or overseas, and the difference between what the quote says and what it lands at
- Road access, load restrictions and the routes that close seasonally
- Local material sourcing assessed against imported — often the decision that moves the number most
- Lead times treated as a cost, because a programme waiting on freight is a programme paying for standing crews
Availability
- Who is actually operating in the region, in each trade category, at the time you are pricing
- Who has capacity for your programme, as distinct from who appears on a register
- Which categories the Kimberley has genuine depth in, and which it does not hold at all
- Whether the business can carry the subcontract value you need to place with it
Availability is answered from the verified supplier register described under regional mobilisation and local supply chain, not from a directory. The distinction is set out in full there.
Market sounding is not a desktop exercise
Establishing what a Kimberley price should be requires actual conversations with suppliers operating in the region — trade contractors, plant hire operators, materials suppliers, logistics providers — to establish what is available, at what lead time, and at what rate. That information is not on a website, and it changes.
The output is a rate build reflecting what the market will actually price, a register of the supply constraints that affect programme, and an assessment of which subcontractors have capacity for your project rather than which ones are already fully committed. It is delivered in time to be priced into the tender, which is the only time it is worth anything.
How the estimate gets built
- Scope interrogated against the tender documents before anything is priced — what is in, what is out, and what the documents assume without saying
- First-principles rate build by trade category, using regional cost rather than a loaded national rate
- Preliminaries and on-costs built up properly — supervision, plant standing time, travel, accommodation, compliance, insurances
- Subcontractor and supplier pricing sought from businesses positioned to deliver the work, with the invitations managed
- Risk and contingency identified and allocated deliberately, rather than buried in the rates
- Qualifications, exclusions and departures written down, so what you priced is what you are held to
The submission itself
A correct price loses to a worse price that answered the question. The commercial response is marked against published criteria, and it is marked by someone who cannot see anything you did not write down.
Tender response
For a specific job you want to go after.
- Reading the tender and pulling out what is actually required
- Structuring the answers against the published criteria, in the order they are marked
- Writing the commercial response and completing the pricing schedules
- Listing departures and qualifications
- Teaming or joint venture with another business where that is what wins it
- One review of the finished submission before it goes in
- Going through the debrief afterwards, win or lose
Capability statement
Written the way government and head contractors read them — not a brochure.
- What you do, in their words
- Jobs you have done — real ones, with permission
- Key people and their tickets
- Safety record and system
- Licences, certificates and registrations
- ABN, business structure, insurances
Addenda are included up to an agreed number. Best-and-final-offer rounds and post-tender negotiation are quoted separately. One fee covers one tender for one project.
Before you can price it, you have to be invited
Plenty of businesses up here can do the work but never see the tender. Government buying and resources procurement both run on their own systems, and a business that is not in them does not get asked. This is the least interesting part of the service and one of the most decisive.
- WA Government supplier registration
- Aboriginal business registers, where they apply to you
- Resources company supplier portals and pre-qualification panels
- Local government and shire supplier lists
WA Government contracts and larger resources packages oblige the head contractor to use local businesses, and Aboriginal-owned businesses in particular. That is genuine opportunity — but only for a business a buyer can find, verify and show on their own reporting. Being eligible under those rules and winning work under them are two different things, and the gap between them is mostly documentation.
The frameworks themselves — WAIPS, the Aboriginal Procurement Policy and the Commonwealth Indigenous Procurement Policy — are set out from the buying side under regional mobilisation and local supply chain. That is the other side of the same requirement, and the two are never run for opposing parties on the same project.
What it costs
Estimating and tender support are priced as a fixed fee against a defined deliverable list, with a capped number of hours agreed in writing before work starts. Where there is work coming up regularly, an ongoing arrangement usually works out better than pricing each tender separately.
We don't publish fees, because the right number depends on the size of the tender and what you need. Ask and you'll get a figure before you commit.
View engagement models and fee structures →
Something you should know
Nausicaa also works for contractors from outside the region — sometimes the same ones you'd be tendering to. We tell you that up front rather than letting you find out.
The firm rules: we won't work for two businesses on opposite sides of the same job. We won't use anything you tell us to help someone else, now or later. Where we're running the contract for a head contractor, we won't also be pricing bids for businesses tendering for work under it. We check before taking anything on, and we write that check down. Sometimes we say no.