News

TEMT: A vision at last

We’re pleased to see that the Tamar Estuary Management Taskforce (TEMT) vision has been released and are pleased with the initial results. The Chamber has been advocating for some time, a vision that delivers ‘triple bottom line’ value – economic, community and environmental benefit, and we believe this vision is a great start. The report has collated the science gathered over many years to outline a strategic path to a better, healthier estuary with improved utility, replacing the ad-hoc efforts of years past.  kanamaluka/Tamar River is part of the fabric of Launceston and its inhabitants want to see real action to restore and improve the estuary.

This is a great opportunity to create a world-class wetland experience that compliments the natural beauty of the Cataract Gorge and the Tamar Island Wetlands. Please click here to see the vision.

The question now will be how best to deliver that vision? 

The question contemplates TEMT’s ability to bring it to fruition. Likely (hopefully?) to be funded under the City Deal second stage we’ll be advocating to ensure that an appropriately resourced authority is established that builds on TEMT’s vision and to contract and legislate for its achievement.  The Federal and State Governments now need to commit to this plan and ensure funding is consistent and sustained so that work can be undertaken strategically.

Launceston – where all the cool kids are coming

You may have heard us say it before… the Chamber’s view is that Launceston will inevitably take its place as a Great Regional City of the World. A superior place to work, live, play & invest.

Well, it seems we’re not the only ones… While the mainland grapples yet again with COVID lockdowns and closures, Tasmania’s perception as a safe haven continues to rise and Launceston made it into the top 5 of the Regional Movers Index, a document created and maintained by the Regional Australia Institute. (Full report here). It measures population outflows from capital cities to the regions and vice versa. In it, Launceston recorded the highest quarter on quarter growth of any of the surveyed cities – showing a nett increase in the March ’21 Quarter of 88%. Year on Year growth is a more moderate 34% but still a very significant figure. 

As a relative newcomer, I can attest to the fact that Launceston’s allure is a unique mix of heritage and forward-looking entrepreneurism served up with a healthy dose of self-assured confidence. A city where there’s opportunity, you can get things done; and with none of the congestion, agro and hassles of big-city living. Scratch the surface and there’s a LOT more going on than you first imagined. No wonder our numbers are up…

The attraction of skilled migration to Northern Tasmania has been a bugbear for some time. This new information seems to suggest that the problem is morphing, but where are we going to put these people? Property prices are rising sharply in response to increased demand, and chamber members in the property management field, report long lists of quality and eager tenants seeking, yet unable to secure appropriate accommodation.  Building approvals are up, yet access to new land releases is becoming more difficult. Finding trades is a challenge – their order books are full. Add in access to materials stymied by supply-chain issues and you get build costs escalating quickly; all of which is becoming a disincentive to investment.  We’ll be taking all this up with the Premier in the coming week.

Well Done, Launceston!

Well done, Launceston! You managed to fill the biggest breakfast event of the year this morning in a showcase event ‘Breakfast with Grace’. Co-hosted by the Chamber with TasICT, the event was sold out at 270 guests in just 72 hrs a few weeks back, dwarfing the Hobart running of the same event. 

The 2021 Australian of the year, Tasmania’s Grace Tame was the drawcard and did not disappoint. In a frank and quite candid interview, Grace was unguarded but also quite upbeat in recounting of her previous struggles with sexual abuse. She had an amazing cut-through with the audience. Her messaging resonated deeply,  and the audience rose to give her a standing ovation. As I looked around the room, there were more than few teary eyes.

Thank you Grace for coming to town; your strength and resilience were inspiring.

The Business of Health

The Chamber maintains a number of standing sub-committees that pull together some of the region’s best people around specific topics, to examine areas for improvement, and identify paths to success. One such committee is the Community & Health Industry Committee (CHIC) where we examine the ‘business’ of the health & allied Industries. I’m pleased to be able to say that the committee includes the CEOs of many of the major health providers across the north. Typically the health industry does not imagine itself as a business; so CHIC’s role is to look at the health & allied industries sector through a business lens, borrowing on lessons learnt in other sectors. Topics under the microscope include skilled staff attraction, supply-chain mapping, just to name a few.

For as long as anyone can remember, CHIC and others have been advocating for the co-location of the Launceston Calvary (Private) Hospital with LGH. Wherever co-locations have happened elsewhere, the outcomes have been unrelentingly positive. So yesterday’s announcement that the Tasmanian Government has completed an MoU with Calvary (as promised during the recent election cycle); has paved the way for a $120M co-located hospital with LGH with land in Frankland Street allocated to the project under the MoU.  Obviously, there’s a long way to go, but this is great news all ‘round.

An artist's impression of the co-located Hospital.
An artist’s impression of the co-located Hospital. Image courtesy of The Examiner
  • It adds to the pile of construction and infrastructure builds in the North that will keep the construction industry in work for years to come. That creates demand for apprenticeship schemes, which filters down into school -> employment pathways. Estimates are (aggregate) 1400 jobs in construction from this project.
  • It creates demand and positions for Health & Allied workers; one of the hardest sectors to recruit for; especially by creating new roles for specialists across a variety of health disciplines. That gives rise to Population Attraction schemes where we will seek to attract and retain skilled professionals to the region, which in turn adds to economic activity in the North.
  • It allows load-balancing between Public & Private health patients which ideally frees up public beds for those patients unable to access the private system
  • It offers the opportunity to cooperate on critical services. Areas such as the public ED, radiology and intensive care benefit from co-location, by improving the economy of scale, funding, and ultimately the overall number of specialist doctors and nurses available.
  • All of which creates better health outcomes for Launceston and the North.

Note: The announcement comes on the heels of the LGH masterplan which was released for public commentary. You can have your say here : https://www.health.tas.gov.au/about_the_department/infrastructure_services

Complacency will do us in (Part 2)

If the pandemic has taught us anything, its that complacency will bring you unstuck eventually. Just ask your colleagues in Victoria at the moment. But for a moment, I want to introduce the notion of complacency around Cyber-Risk. There’s a reason they call them computer viruses… they’re contagious, easily and imperceptibly passed on, they’re hard to eradicate and they make your business feel rotten

Infected PC

Cyber-risk is real. Just look to JBS Meat processing at Longford. As we write hundreds of Tasmanian employees are stood down through no fault of their own while JBS deals with a global scale event. The local ramifications are huge, employees stood down, animals needing temporary relocation, transport stoppages and local supply lines affected.

BY now, a year into the pandemic, we’ve come to expect that businesses have a COVID-19 Safety plan, and also COVID  outbreak containment plan. Transfer that same thinking to your Cyber Risk profile. Do you have similar plans in place? Are you ready for a cyber ‘event’ out-of-the-blue?

  • Do you KNOW how to recognise an outbreak and contain it if (when) it occurs? What about your staff, do they know?
  • Do you have a culture where reporting potential risks is encouraged? I once had a client whose staff member feared reporting when they’d clicked on a bd link in an email, for fear of losing their job over it. Had the event been reported earlier, we could’ve saved a lot of grief.
  • Do you have a bullet-proof data protection strategy in place. I used to counsel clients with a simple plan : 3 copies of the data, stored in 2 different formats and 1 copy off-site and disconnected from everything. 3-2-1 and you could recover from almost anything…. Got anything. Like that setup?

Our post COVID economic recovery is dependent upon business prospering. That’s self-evident, and if business recovery is to continue, it MUST therefore be digital-resilient. A business halted because it’s been shut down by a cyber event, is of little use to anybody – its owner, it’s patrons or the community in general. So a cyber-risk plan is needed for all businesses – large & small.

The Chamber is working with Gold Member The Project Lab to help shape their Cyber-Up Program. Take a look at the program and we encourage businesses in Launceston with less than 199 employees to register their interest. We’re also working with TAS Tafe to assist with shaping their Cyber Risk training courses within their IT streams, ensuring that graduates are real-world work-ready; with skills to match.

And.. we have many Quality IT providers within the Chamber membership that can assist with developing your Cyber Risk management plans. Pick up the phone and get them working for you. Do nothing, and be assured, complacency will do you in, sooner or later.

Eaglecrest Technologies
The Project Lab
AQ Advisory
Another IT Group
Launceston IT
Link Technologies Tasmania

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