The Good Oil * by Rod Brown
The new Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Anthony Albanese, gave a thoughtful and straight shooting address to the National Press Club on 20 February. He noted that infrastructure can be a pretty boring subject, and confirmed it by rattling on about integrated transport systems and public private partnerships (PPPs). But his key message for our future reference was that ‘Labor is committed to coordinating transport planning and expenditure to a much greater extent than the Howard Government’.
What this suggests is that Infrastructure Australia will be paying more attention to analysing the infrastructure needs of our major transport corridors. Whereas Auslink mainly dealt with roads and a bit of rail and port infrastructure, there will be stronger integration of the modes, including airports. And a PPP agenda might fit here somewhere.
Also, Sir Rod Eddington, the former boss of British Airways, has now been named as the Chair of Infrastructure Australia. This should ensure that this agenda doesn’t disappear into the sand.
Good oil: Ensure your planners, engineers and economic development professionals are on the same hymn sheet as regards your transport corridor. They might usefully be speaking with
their colleagues in nearby Councils and State agencies, so there is a consistent message to the Feds.
Victoria’s investment hubs
It’s investment that creates wealth and jobs – and local and foreign investment funds are always looking for a home. To this end, regional development agencies and Local Governments in Europe and the USA are flat out selling their regions. But here, most Councils leave it to the State Governments. Not smart.
In recent months we have identified 12 major investment hubs in Queensland and 20 in New South Wales that would provide the core of a national investment attraction framework.
Let’s turn to Victoria, which is well positioned to attract foreign investment in high end activities.
Victoria has a track record in scientific pursuits, and its transport, leisure and knowledge infrastructure is collectively the best in Australia. It is also compact, with its three main regional cities proximate to Melbourne providing an effective spatial framework. Lastly, Victoria is, along with Queensland, the most progressive in terms of industry and regional development. By our assessment, Victoria has 11 primary investment hubs, from which 30 to 35 spokes could radiate.
Inner Melbourne (CBD plus Southbank, Docklands, Carlton, Parkville, East Melbourne) – a host of biotech, ICT, financial services and sundry small businesses, overlaid with fashion, tourism, retail
operators competing and collaborating within a true milieu. The Melbourne CBD has a more measured, ‘quietly competent’ air than its Sydney counterpart.
And then metropolitan Melbourne has arguably four strong development corridors.
Hume/Whittlesea – specialising in transport and logistics; automotive industries; consumer goods.
Pakenham-Berwick – strong in food manufacturing and light engineering.
Western Melbourne – transport and logistics; heavy engineering.
Monash Precinct – featuring Australia’s most progressive university, Monash Medical Centre, the sychronometer, research labs and numerous high technology start ups and multinationals at Caribbean Gardens, Dandenong Road, Mulgrave Road.
Geelong – deep sea port, gateway to the south west, very good infrastructure, lifestyle attributes and critical mass (200,000 population). Hub angles – automotive, textiles; logistics.
Ballarat – classy city with some distinctive civic assets and 90,000 population. Hub angles – ICT including video games; education; food processing; historical tourism.
Bendigo – a serious centre of manufacturing with 100,000 population. Hub angles – textiles and clothing; food processing; building products and furniture; heavy engineering.
Wodonga – covered last month as part of the Albury-Wodonga hub, but not forgetting the new, sizeable industrial park on its outskirts.
Shepparton – nice city with sunny winter days. Population nudging 65,000 and two per cent growth. Hub angles – fruit and vegetables, transport; water equipment and technology.
Latrobe Valley – an under appreciated string of cities. Declare Traralgon as the regional centre! Hub angles – proximity to surf, snow, water, forests; cheap energy (if prices reflected true costs); engineering capability; dairying; forest products.
The big plus for Victoria is its second tier cities, such as Wangaratta, Mildura, Horsham, Warrnambool, Portland, and bigger towns with good infrastructure, like Swan Hill, Maryborough, Echuca, Warragul-Drouin and Bairnsdale.
Aussie clusters feature at Porter’s Stockholm gig
Slovenia has been seriously into cluster development for around a decade, and in January it jointly hosted a major conference in Stockholm with the European Union, which it joined five years ago. The aim was to set out the contours of a new clusters policy. The European Cluster Memorandum, supported by national and regional agencies for innovation and economic development, was launched during the conference. It sets out a policy agenda to promote European innovation through clusters. Nothing exceptional in that, except Professor Michael Porter was the keynote speaker and he featured two Aussie clusters in the same breath as the Boston lifesciences cluster!
The first was the ‘Australian wine cluster’. Sure the Barossa, Clare Valley, the Hunter, Margaret River, Yarra Valley and so forth each have cluster characteristics, but they aren’t really one cluster. Who’s going to enlighten him?
The other was the Cairns tourism cluster. Porter described it in terms of the interplay of 17 different groupings – restaurants, travel agencies, hotels, airlines, banks, food suppliers and so forth.
He’s dead right – it’s an intense, constantly evolving group of companies and support agencies variously competing, collaborating and cajoling.
Good oil: Think about which of your local industries exhibits cluster characteristics, then map it, and then market it as such. Most localities have a cluster – Chilton historical tourism, Lakes Entrance seafood, Devonport horticulture, Rockhampton beef. Ring me for advice!
Fed’s expenditure cutbacks
Finance Minister Tanner is certainly relishing his new role as the chief axe wielder. He and his Finance bureaucrats are knocking off virtually anything that wasn’t an election promise. The smart money is that the economic slowdown will be biting by mid year and that the 2009–2010 Budget, which begins to be shaped in November this year, will see a return to some normalcy.
Good oil: Local Government should be working up smart projects now, especially in the areas of environment, health, community development, transport, education and Indigenous fields.
*Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant specialising in industry/regional development, investment attraction, clusters and accessing federal grants. He can be contacted at apd@orac.net.au or phone (02) 6231 7261. Go to our blog at www.investmentinnovation.wordpress.com for 400+ articles on issues relevant to Local Government.
