June 2020 Newsletter

Olympics Legacy Sub-committee

While the topic of the 2032 Olympics has necessarily been absent from discussions recently, the Committee did not want to lose its momentum on planning for a south east Queensland legacy, should we be successful with the Games’ bid, and has subsequently established an Olympics Legacy Sub-committee.

If you attended our 10 March event: “2033 Planning a post-Olympics legacy”, you would have heard discussion about how a city can prepare and plan, early, for the legacies to be achieved from significant events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

21 Committee members put their hand up to join the Sub-committee, whose broad purpose will be to identify the legacies – hard and soft, social and commercial – that the SEQ region could/should achieve as a result of the bring-forward investment in infrastructure from a Games.

Committee CEO Barton Green recently distributed a Discussion Paper for the Sub-committee’s consideration, as the first step in mapping out the aims and objectives of the Sub-committee, including the focus areas for “legacy”. The Discussion Paper can be found here.

The first meeting of this Sub-committee is planned for mid-late June.

The members of the Olympics Legacy Sub-committee are:

Paul Allan, Client Development Leader, Arcadis
Dr Catherin Bull AM, Principal Consultant, Catherin Bull Urban Design and Strategy
Tony Carmichael, Director, Environment and Planning, Aurecon
Jason Cooper, Director – Programme Management Office, Transport – Asia Pacific, SNC Lavalin Atkins
Naveen Dath, Director, Cottee Parker Architects
Nick Davy, Executive Project Director, Case Meallin
Peter Edwards, Director, Archipelago Architects
Mike Gillen, Director, Cities, AECOM
Barton Green, Chief Executive Officer, Committee for Brisbane
Meredith Hartigan, Associate Town Planner, Tract
Cory Heathwood, Head of Government, Industry and Community Relations, Brisbane Airport Corporation
David Hertweck, Manager Planning, Port of Brisbane
John Ilett, Director, LAT 27
Nick Kennedy, Associate, Three Plus
Annie Macnaughton, Director – Members and Partnerships, Committee for Brisbane
Robbie Marshall, Senior Principal – Civil Engineering, Cardno
Mark McClelland, Creative Director, Cultural Capital
Geoff McFarlane
Kate Meyrick, Director, Urbis Future State
Matthew Miller, Development Director, Queensland, Lendlease
Gavan Ranger, Strategic Director, Arkhefield
Emma Thomas, Partner, PwC Services
Mitchell Wilson, Corporate Affairs Manager, Live Nation

Committee for Brisbane Recovery Strategy Group recommendations for economic recovery

As part of the Committee’s commitment to greater Brisbane’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery and reform, the Recovery Strategy Group has worked hard to develop a list of 17 projects to be considered for fast-tracking and 28 policy and funding levers/initiatives to help drive economic activity and create jobs.

The RSG’s recommendations were presented to the Brisbane City Council and State Government in late May, with a request that both levels of government engage with the Committee and its members to ensure there was strong and experienced business input to any strategic planning.

In correspondence with BCC and the State Government, we have asked to be a part of discussions with their various Economic Recovery Groups in order that the experience of our membership can be used to help support economic recovery and reform initiatives.

We have subsequently been appointed to BCC’s External Consultative Group.

The recommendations report and summary list presented to Brisbane City Council can be found here.

The recommendations report and summary list presented to the Queensland Government can be found here.

Strong participation on Sub-committees

It’s worth noting that there are 63 Committee for Brisbane members (out of a total 124 members) represented on one or more of three sub-committees, representing participation by 46% of our overall membership.

That is an encouraging statistic and testament to the interest that members have in participating in activities to drive towards our Vision of greater Brisbane as the world’s most liveable region.

There is a least one more Sub-committee planned for 2020, which is expected to be announced in the next few weeks, and we look forward to even more members contributing to important conversations about the region’s future.

Brisbane deserves better from its internet services

In this first of a regular series of thought leadership pieces from members, 6YS Founder and Managing Director Sam Forbes, and his colleague Kathryn Foster from macroData, discuss Brisbane’s digital economy capability and provide some suggestions for improvement:

In modern Brisbane it would be inconceivable that a suburb could function without well-constructed roads for people to travel and for commerce to operate, yet we live in a city with more than 7% of houses yet to be connected to the NBN and many with internet services at ASDL speeds or worse.

While much of this lays with Federal Government policy and the actions of the NBN, it does not excuse the City of Brisbane from being able to address its worst internet blackspots to ensure that businesses and workers and families in those areas are not disadvantaged.

Australia’s internet infrastructure ranks 54th out of the top 63 nations in communications technology, and 38th for internet speeds, according to the World Digital Competitiveness rankings.

If the pandemic and lockdown have demonstrated anything, it is that working from home is a viable option for many sectors of the economy. It has also highlighted the shortcomings in our digital capabilities, which are just not good enough.

Resolving internet availability problems to improve working from home standards, long term, could have significant advantages to businesses, their employees and Brisbane liveability.

Let’s take a quick step back.

When building a case for the national broadband network in 2010, the Gillard Government set a target of 10 per cent of the workforce teleworking, half the time.

Consultancy Deloitte Access Economics predicted that such an outcome could save $1.4 billion to $1.9 billion a year – with about $1.27 billion of that being the time and cost savings of avoided travel.

With increased commuting times, caring responsibilities and the stress of modern workplaces, research says most employees highly value being able to work from home. In fact, a 2017 US study found employees valued the option at about 8 per cent of their wages.

The benefits of teleworking have been shown to lead to greater job satisfaction, lower absenteeism and turnover, increased commitment to the organisation and, importantly, reductions in stress associated with work.

Work-from-home arrangements may also give organisations access to a greater talent pool.

Now, back to the future – our ability to take full advantage of work from home options, and digitally-enabled businesses, is hampered by poor standards of internet service in parts of Brisbane.

An audit of Brisbane’s internet blackspots, possibly commissioned/funded by Brisbane City Council, could identify the worst areas where businesses are affected and subsequently co-fund private internet operators and local businesses to upgrade to fit-for-purpose services.

The economic benefit to the city would be immediate.

And while fixing internet blackspots is one important part of improving our digital capability, another is the need for a SME IT Advisory Service to guide Brisbane’s SMEs in how to effectively engage in the digital economy.

The ITC industry in Brisbane is largely unregulated, vendor-driven, and focused on the top end of town.

Brisbane SMEs are left largely unguided and unable to obtain impartial and qualified advice to maximise their capability in the digital economy, which then impacts on their ability to compete with larger, better funded competitors.

Australia’s digital economy is now greater than $79 billion dollars, and rapidly growing, and is a market sector that Brisbane could better embrace if our SMEs had access to the right advice about appropriate and emerging technologies, supply templates and standards for minimally-acceptable deliverables from ICT firms.

A Brisbane SME ICT Advisory Service could operate similarly to, for example, the Queensland Law Society that provides free advice on how to find appropriate assistance, the right practitioner and the standards the industry expects of its professionals.

A Brisbane SME ICT Advisory Service could go further and showcase technologies for SME businesses that would allow them to embrace e-commerce and digital connectedness.

Brisbane could really embrace and benefit from better participation in the digital economy, but we must first drive ubiquitous internet, where everyone has access to good internet services, and digital capability through education and advice.

Welcome new members

We welcomed six new members in May:

Enterprise Members:

Lucid Media
White & Partners

Individual Members:

Stephanie Wyeth
Laurel Johnson
Yves Du Bois
Laura Bos

AGM date and proposed changes to the Constitution

We’re getting in early to advise that the 2020 Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday 10 November at 5.30pm (venue to be confirmed).

One critical piece of business to be conducted at the AGM will be a recommendation from the Management Committee to adopt a revised Constitution that includes changes to the structure of the Management Committee, as well as updates to ensure the Constitution is relevant to our current operations and activities.

There will be a detailed explanation of the proposed changes to the Constitution distributed well before the AGM to ensure all members have a chance to consider the changes and ask questions.

Upcoming events

June 9. Brisbane and COVID: How smart and digitally connected is the city able to be?

More information & registration for this event here.

The Chair of Infrastructure Australia and CFB Advisory Council member, Julieanne Alroe, will be joined by the Executive Director of the Smart Cities Council, Adam Beck, to unpick the challenges and opportunities for Brisbane in the digital economy.

In 2019, Infrastructure Australia conducted an audit that presented 16 challenges and opportunities for telecommunications in Australia. If the audit was conducted again today, what impact would COVID-19 and the lockdown have?

Julieanne and Adam will explore a range of issues associated with infrastructure as well as the capture and beneficial use of data, including:

Does Brisbane have a good digital backbone – the base infrastructure to be a Smart City?
How ready and able was Brisbane for a seismic shift to e-commerce and e-work? Were we equipped to work effectively from home?
If the post-COVID environment means less travel for work, more reliance on online meetings and more frequent working from home, what does Brisbane need to do to enable that?

June 18. Brisbane City Council post-Budget briefing.

More information & tickets for this event here.

Deputy Mayor and Chair of City Planning and Economic Development, Cr Krista Adams, will share her thoughts on the first budget for recently-elected Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner’s administration, with a particular focus on planning.

The widespread economic impacts from COVID-19 and the lockdown will have ramifications for Brisbane across a range of economic and community sectors, and the challenge of balancing service delivery against revenue raising will be significant.

Has COVID exposed digital inequity in our society? Where and how?
What should Brisbane’s digital capacity be and what do we need to do to achieve it?

New Committee for Brisbane website

We recently revamped the Committee’s website for improved functionality and speed – and a better look. Have a look when you can and bookmark the site for all your Committee news and updates on policy activity.

Special thanks to CFB Patron, Portfolio Creative Services, for pulling all of that together.

Images supplied by @tony_elsom

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