“Fostering regional
development through
targeted research”
Andrew McEwen
Manager Economic Development City of Thuringowa
Getting priority & action
• Luck or a random event? (Marginal electorate)
• Rational choice? (Rational planning)
• Messy! (incremental planning or crisis)
Sustainable development features
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Partnership and collaborative culture
Genuine stewardship leadership
Engaged community 1% directly
Futures orientation
Shared Vision & regional plan
Strategic approach
Industry network clusters
Learning region
Enterprise culture
Cultural milieu
Challenges facing NQ
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10% growth
Major infrastructure issues (energy, transport etc)
Object of planning rather than a subject of planning
Lack of co-ordination and integration
Ad hoc election cycle driving funding
Lack of engagement in planning processes
Lack of future orientated planning
No genuinely shared vision for the future
Skills shortage and housing affordability
Focus on current opportunities rather than emerging
challenges and opportunities.
Strategic Choice:gaining attention and achieving priority
• Rational comprehensive
planning
• Social action:- direct
action politics
• Social planning
• Community organising
• Research, development
and diffusion
• Faith and optimism
• Not preferred option
• Winners & losers
• Indirect tends to deal with
consequences
• Longer term partnership
• Requires shared agenda
• Less threatening, based
on evidence & can
change assumptions
Research and development
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Gain attention
Identify costs and benefits
Focus the agenda
Provide alternative policy options
Shapes the strategic conversation
Innovation and diffusion cycle
Shifts the context
Tipping point
Emergent strategy
Influencing the strategic conversation
• Policy and strategy changes are an emergent
phenomena
• Draws from the strategic conversation of
influential people (tipping point)
• Influencing the “Influential people”
• NQ Economic Development Conference
• Platform for launching research & the strategic
conversation
• Open planning to engage and to identify
challenges and issues
SEQ Footprint from 1981 to 2026
Wayne Delafroce QUT
SEQ and Regionalisation
• SEQ to grow by 1000 people per week
• An additional 1.3m people by 2026
• This growth is both an enormous
opportunity an challenge
• Population growth has underpinned
economic growth QLD
• Over centralisation of this growth could put
this at risk
Regional centres can cater for some of this
growth
• 2005 SEQ plan required $66B for 1.3m people in SEQ
• SEQ already faces infrastructure shortfalls in power,
water & transport
• Regional centres such as NQ are already growing
rapidly
• Regional Queensland has the ability to cater for some of
this growth
• There is an opportunity for state government to
compliment growth in SEQ with a balanced investment
in 21st century regionalisation
Attraction of Queensland
People come for a mixture of reasons
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Destination awareness
Lifestyle and quality of life
Employment opportunities
Sea change
Competitive housing prices
Most decentralised state
Disappearing attraction of SEQ
AEC study we commissioned & are releasing says
continued growth of SEQ will lead to:
• Increased traffic congestion
• Reduced air quality
• Loss of environmental corridors & green space
• Escalating costs of housing
• Chronic water shortage
• Higher infrastructure costs of SEQ vs. Regions
The risks of the centralised approach
Emerging diseconomies of scale in SEQ could
lead to either:
A decrease in population growth to the state
Or
An unplanned shift of these people to regional Qld.
So what is the problem?
AEC study shows that continued growth to SEQ is
less than optimal:
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Higher residential development costs and density
Road congestion & increased travelling distances
Access & availability of adequate water supply
Cost of infrastructure development
Housing access and affordability
Loss of open space and environmental quality
Generally loss of quality of life that attracts people
So what can we do?
AEC Study found that a properly thought out
regionalisation strategy in areas like TownsvilleThuringowa would:
• Be $10,900 cheaper per person for infrastructure
• Provide savings of $2.4b for the state government
• Add over $3B to regional economies
• Save $9B in private construction costs
• Reduce the loss of quality of life in SEQ
• Maintain attractiveness of Qld with more affordable
housing than SEQ
Effective regional planning
• Currently there is a glad bag of programs run by
different departments
• The success of SEQ Plan should be a pointer for
all regions
• It is a comprehensive regional plan with
legislative underpinning & one co-ordination
body
• There are clear performance measures for the
office of urban management
Genuinely leading smart regions
• Opportunity to develop overacting plans through
upgraded lending smart regions program
• A strategic development framework for
infrastructure and growth
• Provide legislative underpinnings and one coordination body to oversee implementation
• Development of a co-ordinated strategy to
attract industry investment and people
• Maintaining unbalanced growth in SEQ will have
negative impacts on SEQ and the entire state
Prima facie case has been established
• Need to shift to a co-ordinated and balanced
approach to regionalisation
• Such regionalisation will be cheaper for state and
reduce pressures on quality of life in SEQ.
• It is a complex and difficult task but not impossible
• We can achieve greater return to regions and the
whose state.
• Infrastructure savings will be realised over time
• Opportunities for balanced development of SEQ
and our regions
Smart regions
• Agreed regional plans and priorities for regional
development
• Upfront infrastructure plans like SEQ to attract
people
• Industry incentives investments based on
agreed regional competitive advantages
A WIN WIN FOR SEQ AND THE REGIONS
• The proposal to transfer a percentage of growth from
SEQ to the regions offers a win win for all
Queenslanders.
• The program to attract people and industry to regions
would be cost neutral with infrastructure savings
financing any costs involved
• Less pressure on SEQ will reduce pressure on the very
lifestyle that people find attractive in SEQ.
• We wish to enter into a constructive dialogue with the
Qld government to maintain the balance in development
of SEQ and the regions, which has provide the
foundation for sustained growth for all Queenslanders
Current Outcomes
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Research and paper presented to 2006 NQ EDC
Media coverage and interest from ‘pollies’
Presented to Community Cabinet
Has been recognised as a real option
Is currently being assessed
Next steps:continuation of the strategy
• October 2007 NQ Economic Development
Conference
• Theme of “building prosperous partnerships”
• Objective of getting commitment to region
development and an infrastructure plan
• Community organisation
– Partnership development strategy and continued
research development and diffusion strategy
New research project
Gaining attention and getting attraction
• Climate change: water energy and the new
dynamics of competition
• 330 industry sector analysis
• Water, energy, wages, land, skills, GH gases,
• Comparative assessment of the new competitive
advantage of NQ vs. other states and regions
• Identify industry and companies to target to shift
• Model impact to different strategies
• Focus political attention “Giving them a why”
Problems & Needs
Strategic
Intervention
R&D &
Diffusion
Set Context
Influence
Conversation
Tipping
Point
Set Agenda
New Policy
Problems & Needs
Strategic
Intervention
Research &
Development
Set Context
Innovation
&
Diffusion
Influence
Conversation
Tipping
Point
Set Agenda
New Policy
Community
Development
Partnership
Alliances
Summary / Questions