The Sunshine Coast Business Council (SCBC) has commended the University of the Sunshine Coast and Sunshine Coast Council for hosting the Sunshine Coast Futures Conference on Friday, 7 November, which brought together key regional stakeholders, academics and professionals from a broad range of industries to address critical issues facing the Sunshine Coast.
SCBC Chair Sandy Zubrinich said the strength of the conference was in its focus on how to successfully deliver regional strategy.
“Too often, the importance of actioning long-term planning is overlooked, but the fact remains it is only through collaboration between government and industry that we can become a prosperous and ever-growing regional centre,” Ms Zubrinich said.
“The conference provided a direct platform for business and community members to share their perspective on the key issues affecting the Sunshine Coast, and it was great to see some strategic action-oriented thinking.”
Ms Zubrinich said the methodologies and tools outlined by keynote speaker Professor Ed Morrison for acting collaboratively to address critical regional issues were of huge value to those in attendance, and she also supported comments made by Sunshine Coast Economic Futures Board Director David Foster at the event.
“David reiterated that small-to-medium-size enterprises are the engine room of Australia, and in particular, the Sunshine Coast, and raised the importance of leveraging large-scale regional projects such as the Sunshine Coast Airport expansion and Kawana health precinct to strengthen the underlying regional economy,” Ms Zubrinich said.
“At the end of the day, the Sunshine Coast economy is a subset of the broader Australian economy, and to best position ourselves in this rapidly globalising market, we need to take advantage of the opportunities on offer such as the local airport expansion, the proposed Sekisui international resort development and the Halls Creek development.”
“There will always be some level of opposition to these kinds of developments, but there’s no reason why government, industry and community can’t strike a balance between responsible development, regional growth and caring for our environment.”
Ms Zubrinich said as Mr Foster had pointed out, strong competition and difficulties in accessing capital and credit facilities had the potential to limit investment in the region, and as such, it was important that the Sunshine Coast thoroughly explored all opportunities for growth that arose.
“Mayor Jamieson’s comment that ‘when opportunity knocks, some people complain about the noise,’ couldn’t ring truer. As a community, the Sunshine Coast needs to stand up and take action to secure a sustainable economy well into the future.”