People

Over the last few years APA has evolved from an infrastructure owner with 40 people to a fully integrated and dynamic operating business with over 1,100 skilled and experienced people managing APA's assets and investments. As our business continues to grow, we want our people to grow with it.

We have built a Human Resources program to deliver on our goals and created a unified workforce, having integrated six separate businesses into APA. APA offers a high quality work environment, a culture where the safety of our people is paramount.

A key strength of APA is our unique business model, where we manage all aspects of our business internally. We have a truly national team of people, with tremendous skills and depth in the energy industry, managing and operating over $8 billion of assets from 57 locations across the country.

We recognise that our most important asset is the people who work for us. We have hard-working, roll-up-your-sleeves people who like to achieve results. We provide our employees with a comprehensive benefits program and a wider platform of opportunities to further apply and develop their skills.

As APA continues to grow and prosper, we encourage our employees to grow with us. We are investing in training and development programs to provide our employees with opportunities and encourage them to accept greater challenges and responsibility along the way.

Key highlights of our employee programs during the year were:

Learning and development

• Creation of a national APA Leadership Development Program: The senior leadership team completed the first module of this innovative program, which will be cascaded to all APA leaders in the 2010 financial year.
• Technical training program: Technical knowledge and skills training for employees to keep up to date with regulatory compliance and industry standards.
• Assisted Education Program: Supporting our people to undertake formal education and development opportunities to enhance their skills and further their careers at APA.

Workplace initiatives

Flexible Work Practices

• Formally introducing a Flexible Work Practices Policy enabling our people to make workplace arrangements that provide greater work/life balance opportunities. These include permanent part time work, job sharing, working from home, flexible working hours, purchasing leave and career breaks.

The Australian Employers Network on Disability

• Participating as a Silver member of The Australian Employers Network on Disability, enabling us to take a leadership role in advancing the inclusion of people with a disability in our business.

Supporting Women in the Workplace

• Offering a range of programs to support, attract and retain women in our workforce.
• Sponsorship of the Women in Engineering Conference in Sydney in 2008.

Fair treatment

• APA's Fair Treatment Program is designed to ensure everyone at APA understands their obligations and rights to fair and equitable treatment at work.

Employee engagement

• Completed our second employee satisfaction survey, achieving stronger and improved results. The 2009 survey showed overall employee satisfaction of 79% compared with 72% in our 2008 survey.

In addition to these initiatives, APA continued to advance our Employee Assistance Program and offered employees a range of additional benefits including health benefit discounts.

Delivering sustainable energy

Delivering cleaner energy

APA recognises that the need to reduce the world's emissions of greenhouse gases is one of the greatest economic, social, and environmental challenges of our time. APA also recognises that as a major energy infrastructure business we have a role to play in assisting Australia to meet this challenge. Natural gas provides an affordable, clean energy solution that will support Australia's transition to a carbon-constrained environment.

Climate protection not only preserves our environment but is also a business field with enormous growth prospects. The increasing focus on reducing carbon pollution and encouraging the production and consumption of cleaner energy is expected to lead to increased demand for natural gas, resulting in opportunities for gas-fired power generation and gas storage.

Reducing Australia's carbon footprint

Almost all of APA's carbon footprint arises from the transportation of natural gas to consumers who, as a consequence of using gas rather than other fossil fuels, are able to significantly reduce their own carbon footprints. For example, replacing coal boilers with natural gas high efficiency steam boilers significantly reduces both energy and water consumption, and consequently a material reduction in carbon emissions is achieved despite the emissions arising through gas transport.

APA will report its greenhouse emissions in October 2009 in compliance with the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007.

A participant in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme

The Federal Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) places an economic value on carbon emissions and a cap on the total amount of emissions permissible by the Australian economy. The CPRS is intended to encourage a market response to reduce emissions while at the same time minimising the economic impact.

APA continues to participate in the Federal Government's consultation process to ensure that any additional costs incurred in the process of transporting natural gas flow through to end users, thereby meeting the aims of CPRS by sending the price signal through to the energy consumer.

While there is still uncertainty about how Australia's CPRS will work, the demand for new capacity across many of our gas transmission pipelines has increased over the year, particularly in the eastern states.

Environmentally responsible

APA is taking an active role in reducing its impact on the environment. APA has a national recycling policy and has installed 'smart' technology in many workplaces, reducing energy use. This technology will be systemically installed in the remaining workplaces as they require refurbishment.

APA is committed to the principles of sustainable development and high standards of environmental performance as a responsible way to do business. As Australia's largest natural gas pipeline owner and operator, APA minimises environmental impacts, adheres to environmental regulations and protects and regenerates the environment in which it operates.

Below are some examples of APA's commitment to doing the right thing in minimising environmental impacts when building our infrastructure.

APA engaged the services of Global Directional Drilling in the expansion of its natural gas network to the Pimpana-Coomera region on the Gold Coast. Global Directional Drilling constructed four directional bores using the Kemtron Recycle System which reuses drilling fluids, reducing water usage. To date, three bores totalling 156 metres were completed using 159,737 litres of water, of which only 31,000 litres was consumed, and recycling 128,737 litres. This not only saved water but also minimised the impact on the environment.

In August 2008, APA formed a partnership with Coffey Natural Systems and Greening Australia in an environmental initiative relating to the construction of the Wickham Point Pipeline, Northern Territory. APA discovered that the pipeline corridor was home to the Cycad (one of the Northern Territory's iconic plants and a protected species), and worked with the partnership to salvage as many of the ancient species as possible. The plants were removed, re-potted and placed into irrigated storage areas to be used in revegetation projects. 847 plants were salvaged, with a strong survival rate expected. Greening Australia praised this initiative and hopes it will become standard practice in the Northern Territory.