In the lead up to the federal election I’m wondering where is the debate on what this region needs now to achieve higher economic growth.
A hospital car park appears to be the dominant topic instead.
Our fixation on band aid patches isn’t going to solve the underlying problems, problems that are contributing to poor economic growth.
Rockhampton Regional Council are now using a growth rate of less than 1% in their budget forecasting.
Less than 1%, should we be happy with that? If you’re running a business, looking for a job, thinking of starting a business, own or looking at buying a property in the region I would suspect not.
If sustained job creation is desired (I believe it should be the highest priority) and our standard of living to improve we need economic growth. To achieve it we need sustained demand, sustained demand for local products and services.
Population growth can provide this sustained demand and thus stimulate economic growth.
None of this is easy to achieve in a post mining boom economy, but at a time when our region is actually being actively sought by the 2 major political parties we should use it to seek conditions and/or infrastructure that lead to sustained demand and job creation.
The important word is ‘sustained’.
Building a car park at the hospital will not deliver substantial sustained job creation. Perhaps a few parking attendants after the car park is completed.
Rookwood Weir potentially offers sustained job creation, but with not much enthusiasm from the state government this may take years to be realised, if ever.
We need to be seeking more than part funding promises for a car park and weir in this federal election.
I’m not knocking these projects or promises but this region that has contributed so much to the national economy should be wanting more; more infrastructure that can quickly stimulate sustained direct or indirect job creation, like a convention centre and stadium. Wanting more conditions favourable to encouraging more start up businesses, like a Youth Entrepreneurship Economic Zone that I’ve previously proposed.
Research highlights that young businesses (under 5 years) and the top 5% of high growth businesses (measured by employees) create 72% of net revenue growth and 67% of net job creation in our economies.
While it may be questionable to allocate scarce resources to attract the top 5% of high growth industries to our region more can and needs to be done to create a favourable environment for new businesses/start-up’s to propagate here in our region.
Council is being more pro-active in this area, why aren’t we wanting of the fed’s to provide more specific attention to our region also.
We need promises and action that retain and attract people to our region.
In the remaining 25 days to the election lets be more wanting of our candidates, wanting promises that can lead to sustained demand and job creation, promises that can stimulate our economic growth.
Of course we can do things ourselves to improve our economic growth; consider where you buy, how you sell our region to friends and being active in the developing a stronger start up ecosystem. The next Start Up Capricorn meeting is on June 28. See their Facebook page for details.