QMFC Director Narelle Pearse Invited to 2020 Summit

Thu, 8 May 08

Your Council was extremely pleased and honoured that one of our directors, Narelle Pearse, was invited to take part in the 2020 Summit in Canberra on 19 and 20 April 2008.

Narelle, who is based in Mackay and is the CEO of the Mackay & Whitsunday Regional Economic Development Corporation, was selected to be part of the “Future Direction of the Australian Economy” stream and was particularly keen to ensure that regional issues formed part of the agenda. The stream was further split into sub-groups in order to better focus discussions and manage the large numbers. Narelle’s substream was Infrastructure and the group included Bob Carr, Marius Kloppers, Andrew Forrest, Anthony Albanese, Geoff Dixon, Lindsay Fox, and Margaret Jackson.

Narelle commented that:

“The Infrastructure group probably included the majority of the more well known players, however, everyone was given a fair chance to have their say, and I must say that I certainly held the floor on more than one occasion. We were told from the beginning that the facilitators were not looking for consensus, but rather a range of ideas that could contribute to future solutions.

• Moving towards a truly National economy through changes to the current Federation model.

• A review and overhaul of the current taxation system to ensure fairness, simplicity and efficiency.

• Productive investment in priority infrastructure via efficient regulation.

• Openness and transparency in decision making, involving public debate.

• Investment in human capital.

The group stressed the need for a more streamlined approach to both public and private infrastructure provision, and the need to remove the bottlenecks created by heavy regulation. It was suggested that we need to move towards an independent infrastructure review board that constituted equal representation from Government and Private sector, and included representation from regional areas.

Overall I think the 2020 Summit was very successful, however the message from participants was clear…….the momentum needs to be maintained, and the Summit should not be a one off event. I must say that there were no surprising ideas, and most centred around what we know needs to happen to move Australia forward. All participants were keen to stay involved in order to ensure that the ideas put forward could be bought to fruition, not by Government alone, but through an ongoing collaborative initiative. The media may have focused on the more well known participants, but they did not represent the majority of people there. I met many people from many walks of life who, like myself, were not well known to the majority of the Australian public. I look forward to the Government’s response to the ideas come December this year.”

QMFC extends its congratulations to Narelle on the honour of her selection as well as for the contribution she made over the weekend. We eagerly look forward to the future developments that will flow from the Summit.