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The strange thing about the New Year period in QS terms is its schizophrenic nature. On one hand we treat it as an extended silly season, when liquid lunches with contractors' QSs are allowed again (30 years previous the regular preserve of the monthly valuation cycle). Yet at the same time firms face pressure to give the client the benefit of a clean slate in the New Year with a firm assessment of their liabilities to date and a new approach to the balance of the projects. With renegotiations and settlements supposed to sweep away the errors of the past, inaccurate documentation and unachievable programmes included.

How the claim specialists must rub their hands at this festive season. What it means, however, is that many poor QSs must work very hard over a period when most people are winding down.

I wound down at the end of the year and earlier this year in north Sydney. I had planned to take the opportunity to contact my opposite number (chair of the local association of the RICS for the Sydney area) to see how the members had faired post Agenda for Change. I was able to meet with an officer who was pleased with the local office, set up in the late 1990s, and was upbeat about the RICS' future and growth potential in the region, despite all the specialties within the faculties represented by their own local professional bodies. But I was unable to meet with my counterpart, due to the Christmas and New Year holiday period which, of course, falls in their mid-summer holiday period.

One of the areas of professional practice, which I had planned to compare, was the level of controls and regulations that currently bedevil our industry in the UK.

In many ways Australia is a very regulated community with differing cultural influences and much union pressure. For example, only in Australia have I been delayed at an airport due to a strike by pilots over the length of the new regulation shirtsleeve. However, it was put to me by a second-generation Australian, who's family came from Latvia, that Australia has taken all the best bits of the "old country" and left behind the crap.

They encourage and support enterprise and free thinkers, with venture capitalists busy long before they were allowed to operate in the UK, they have a "can do" attitude and are less constrained by the rigid class and historically privileged system of controls which often still stifle good ideas in the UK, old boys networks and the correct schools. Banks and officials appear more willing to support good ideas and allow the development of them, with any commercial successes being enjoyed without embarrassment and the envy of the rest of society. The ‘Bridge Climb' enterprise, over the Sydney Harbour Bridge being an example. A national asset in this country would never be able to be used by private enterprise under a 20-year lease as was successfully negotiated by that shrewd Aussie, would it?

Since that observation was made, while I was swigging from a stubby, participating in the well attended Twilight Races held on Pittwater, (home of the Sydney Hobart Race winners for 2006), which are held twice weekly, I could see what he meant. They work hard but play harder.

Before you can publish your budgets, you have to consider bat surveys, Natterjack toads and sites of scientific interest

Can anyone in the UK imagine the situation where key players in an organisation are allowed "out to play" on such a regular basis? Aren't we following the wrong road with our 10-minute lunch grazes and jackets left over the chair backs to avoid the bosses seeing that their staff need to have a life?

With the Olympics looming, maybe we should learn from Australia. Perhaps we need to clip some of the constraints which our Nanny State imposes and go for it, with a pride in being British which is currently seen as unseemly.

Among the difficulties QSs currently face is the plethora of interested parties and pressure groups who are allowed to interfere with a simple development.

In the past, when preparing a cost plan for a scheme, new build or renovation, a site visit to locate the services, sort out the specific constraints such as levels, existing buildings, ground conditions and neighbours would suffice. But not anymore.

Now, before you can publish your budgets with any confidence, you have to consider the effects of the following as well: site contamination and disposal/containment, remediation and officials with powers (but no commercial drivers) adopting a "wouldn't it be nice to" attitude, rather than "this is actually necessary", radon and asbestos surveys, attenuation and effects on the existing over stretched facilities. Bat surveys, Natterjack toads and sites of scientific interest - all this without considering the wishes of English Heritage and the National Parks and all the other interested parties and organisations.

The architects, if up with the system, will deal with some of these as the project develops, but not when we see the initial concept scheme on the beer mat, and when the client is keen to know what it will cost and when it can be built.