Page 1746 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 13 May 2015
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enhance our economic development opportunities. The Canberra region’s critical population mass can be used to our advantage. We have already seen this with Costco and IKEA taking into account the regional population in their decisions to establish a presence in the Canberra region. Similarly, our advocacy for direct international flights into Canberra is based on the Canberra region population and beyond.
The Canberra region brand provides opportunities to promote the region’s identity in national and international markets. The partnership between the ACT government and the Canberra Region Joint Organisation, representing those 12 councils of south-eastern New South Wales, will use the Canberra region brand to demonstrate the importance and significance of the collective regional footprint. This will be done nationally and internationally, profiling those tourism, export and economic diversities. The Canberra region brand provides a solid platform upon which the region can promote its competitive strengths to potential visitors, investors, students, residents and businesses.
Our higher education and research sectors together can play a valuable role in our economy. Together they currently add $2.75 billion to our economy each year and support almost 16,000 jobs. Canberra is one of the world’s top student cities. We have more than 44,000 students across the five universities and the Institute of Technology here. Growth in this city can help drive innovation and commercialisation, foster more employment opportunities and help us attract more of the best and brightest to Canberra and our region.
One in nine of our residents works or studies at a university in the ACT. This indicates one reason why we have such a well-qualified and skilled labour market and why we are well placed to become a hub for entrepreneurial and innovation excellence. Whilst the government is keen to foster growth and investment across all higher education and research institutions in the ACT, it has recently driven reforms to get the University of Canberra onto a stronger path of growth and prosperity.
The passage of the University of Canberra Amendment Bill means UC is now able to provide cultural, sporting, professional and commercial services to the community. It is able to generate even more economic activity and expand its services for people living and working in Belconnen, in my electorate, as well as the wider ACT and Canberra region. The university is helping to build Canberra’s reputation as a smart, connected and creative city. The introduction later this week of a further set of amendments to planning and unit title arrangements for the University of Canberra will better place the university to attract and invest up to a billion dollars in new facilities and services on its campus.
As each higher education institution in the ACT is expanding and building in areas of excellence, the overall winners are the community, our community of Canberra, and the businesses that set up here to capitalise on the steady stream of graduates and our well-educated workforce in fields as diverse as engineering, defence and cyber security at UNSW; theology at Charles Sturt University; education and health services at the Catholic University; supercomputing, law, medicine, public policy and other fields at ANU; or even government, business, construction and health services at UC; and of course renewable energy at the CIT, just to name a sample from each of those institutions.
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