Hon Maxine McKew to launch Regional Development Australia Sunshine Coast

The Hon Maxine McKew, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is visiting the Sunshine Coast today to launch Regional Development Australia (RDA) Sunshine Coast.

The Chair of RDA Sunshine Coast said today that RDA’s role would include driving industry development and job creation. “Business investment and job creation must be achieved within the context of an understanding of our financial, social and environmental context including population growth, land use planning opportunities, and the effects of climate change.

“We acknowledge that there have been past failures of planning, failure of coordination, failure of balanced investment, and a failure in coordinated service delivery. These failures to invest in regional capacity and regional infrastructure have been typified by buck-passing, blaming and self-defeating attitudes.

“RDASC understands those attitudes and behaviours, yet we eschew them and will not engage in them. We see them as symptomatic of a people under extraordinary pressure.
“RDASC is inspired by and looks for lessons from the natural history and evolution of the Sunshine Coast region. We are interested in its historical capacity to transition in the face of economic and industry changes and challenges. We are confident about future possibilities to moderate the strife of interests and a need to put the region first.

“As the endorsed inter-governmental vehicle for regional cooperation, we will bring together the various levels of government around regional priorities. We will draw down information from the Federal and State Governments and feed-up information around regional opportunities. We will network and coordinate laterally to match national and state policy to practical regional initiatives.

“As a community we embrace a more sustainable and affordable technological future without sacrificing those aspects of life that are precious to us now.”
The Chair said “Some of our inherited technologies, particularly in water, energy and telecommunications, need to be reconsidered in the light of new technologies and a vision that can take the Sunshine Coast community and our country into a future that is more socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.”

“I will be looking to develop strong links with our regional university and its Innovation Centre to help educate a workforce for the future that is competent in the new technologies and sciences.”

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