We work throughout the Pacific — Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and beyond — for hotel groups, hospitals, government property, port and terminal operators and commercial building owners. There is very little independent lift advice available in the region, which is precisely why it matters. We do not sell, install or maintain lifts, and we take no commission from anyone who does.
We travel to the PacificWe travel throughout the Pacific for client work, including Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia. We will always tell you who is attending and from where before you engage us.
What we do for Pacific buildings
The services owners and managers ask for most often are maintenance auditing, reviewing a contract or quotation before it is signed, and advice on whether to modernise or replace. The full range:
- Maintenance auditing and mandatory inspections
- Witness testing and commissioning
- Due diligence and capital planning
- Modernisation and full replacement
- Tendering and contract negotiation
- Project management
- Insurance claim management
- Peer review
- Feasibility studies
- Portfolio management
- WHS compliance
- Reporting
What we see in Pacific buildings
Every part and every technician arrives from somewhere else
This is the defining fact of lift ownership in the Pacific. There is little or no local specialist capacity, so a component failure is a logistics problem before it is a technical one. A maintenance agreement written to a mainland template — response times in hours, parts assumed available — describes something that cannot happen. What matters instead is what spares are held on the island, who bears travel and freight, and what the escalation path actually is when a lift stops.
The hardest environment there is
Heat, humidity and salt together are more punishing than any of them alone, and Pacific coastal sites get all three continuously. Corrosion in shafts, pits and rooftop plant progresses quickly, and control electronics live permanently near the top of their rated range. Machine room cooling is frequently the single highest-value thing an owner can fix.
Cyclone exposure and what happens afterwards
Much of the region sits in the cyclone belt. Post-event assessment is routine work, and the value of it depends almost entirely on whether anybody documented the condition of the equipment beforehand. For insured assets that record is the difference between a straightforward claim and an argument.
Limited competition, and what that means for price
Where there is one realistic supplier, a quotation is not tested by anything. That is the situation across much of the region, and it is exactly the circumstance in which independent scope and independent price comparison earn their keep. It is also why donor-funded and government projects in the region increasingly require independent technical review as a condition of funding.
Sectors we work across
Residential and strata-titled towers, commercial office buildings, hotels and short-stay accommodation, retail centres, healthcare and aged care, education, government and local council property, and industrial facilities. The equipment differs, the commercial questions rarely do.
What independence actually means
Plenty of firms describe themselves as independent. It is worth being precise about what it means here, because the word is doing real work.
We do not sell lifts. We do not install them. We do not maintain them. We hold no agency, distributorship or referral arrangement with any manufacturer or maintenance contractor, and we take no commission, rebate or finder’s fee from anyone who does. There is no version of a recommendation from us that earns us money somewhere else.
That matters most at exactly the moments it is hardest to tell — when you are handed an upgrade proposal, when a contractor says a component is beyond repair, or when a maintenance agreement is put in front of you to sign. Our answer costs us nothing either way.
Who actually does the work
Advice is only as good as the person giving it, so it is worth knowing who is behind ours. Our team holds qualifications across both the electrical and mechanical sides of vertical transportation:
- Sidney Bastos — Managing Director. BBA and Licensed Electrical Contractor.
- Tony Berry — Director. Licensed Design Practitioner (DPVT).
- Stephen McIlroy — Mechanical Engineer, RPEQ.
- David Moors — Electrical Engineer.
- Hong Liang — Chartered Engineer, CEng FCIBSE.
- Nancy Li Liang — BEng, MBA.
You can see the full team and their backgrounds.
Accreditations and memberships
The Lift Consultancy is CM3 prequalified and Australian Owned Certified, and holds membership or accreditation with:
- Australian Elevator Association
- Lift Engineering Society of Australia
- Engineers Australia
- International Association of Elevator Engineers
- Smart Strata
- PICA Group Community Select
- Rapid Global
Common questions
Which countries do you actually work in?
We travel throughout the Pacific, including Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia. Tell us where the building is and we will be straight with you about what attendance involves and what it costs.
Is it realistic to have a lift properly maintained in the islands?
Yes, but the agreement has to be written for the reality rather than copied from a mainland template. Spares held on site, who bears travel and freight, and a genuine escalation path matter far more here than a stated response time that nobody can meet.
Our hotel lift has been out of service for weeks waiting on a part. Is that avoidable?
Often, yes — with a spares holding appropriate to the site and a contract that obliges it. That is a decision made when the agreement is written, not when the lift stops.
What should we do after a cyclone?
Do not return equipment to service until it has been assessed, and document its condition before anything is reinstated. Where there is a pre-event condition record, the claim is usually straightforward. Where there is not, it usually is not.
There is only one contractor available to us. What can you actually do?
Test the scope and the price against what the work should reasonably involve, and make sure the agreement obliges what the building needs. A single supplier is not the same as no leverage, but you need to know what you are looking at.
Do you work on donor-funded or government projects?
Yes. Independent technical review, scope documentation and verification of completed work are all part of what we provide, and documentation that survives audit is part of the brief.
Choosing a consultant
If you are weighing up more than one firm, we have written a plain guide to what to look for and what to ask — including the questions that separate genuine independence from the word on a website. It applies whoever you end up engaging, including if that is not us.
How to choose a lift consultant
Talk to us
Tell us what is happening with your lifts and we will point you at the right consultant. There is no charge for the initial conversation, and if you do not need us we will say so.
(07) 5509 0100 · admin@theliftc.com · Contact us
Our officesGold Coast · Sydney · Melbourne · Canberra · Perth · Auckland
We also travel toBrisbane, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea — and elsewhere on request. See where we work.