By Karl Hoerr -
Eamon Waterford is a man with many ideas. As CEO of urban policy think tank the Committee for Sydney, he is involved in seeking to tackle some of the city’s most complex problems, from housing affordability to infrastructure, economic opportunity to equity. It’s a huge remit, and in a new episode of LSJ’s podcast series Just Chat, Waterford explains why we should be talking more about what Sydney does well.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Waterford touches on some of the priorities outlined by Law Society of New South Wales President Ronan MacSweeney at the start of the year. This includes a push to improve access to justice, with enhanced physical and digital court and tribunal infrastructure.
He agrees that such investments might not attract the same attention as big ticket transport projects but could still make a real difference to people’s lives. “These sorts of underlying infrastructure investments into supporting a successful knowledge economy are really, really important productivity investments for our city,” he says.
Waterford points to the city’s high rates of tertiary education and its diversity of first and second-generation migrants as some of the “smart” and “interesting” aspects of the city’s economy. “All of those things add up to a really, really attractive offering to the world to come and invest and visit and stay and move their families here, but if we don’t have the underlying infrastructure that enables those knowledge intensive, high productivity jobs, like good, well-functioning legal systems, we often struggle to grasp that opportunity,” he says.
“Making the case for the upside benefit of something like this investment, the productivity gains, the job creation, is hard but critical.”
Waterford is also asked about Sydney’s ability to lean into what it does well, in the context of another President’s Priority; promoting NSW as a legal jurisdiction of choice in the Asia-Pacific region.
He argues we need to change the story we tell the world about Sydney, which he says tends to focus on physical assets like bridges and beaches. “[T]hey say nothing about the ingenuity, the intelligence, the can-do attitude of Sydneysiders,” he says.
The Committee’s research reveals that in a number of business categories, Sydney’s performance is strong, but its perception in the global market is fairly low. This gap means the city misses out on investment opportunities. “People are overlooking Sydney because it’s just not on their consideration list. It hasn’t occurred to them that we could be the place that they could be coming to.”
Globally, the attribute of stability, underpinned by the rule of law, can work to our advantage. “You know if you sign a contract in Australia, it will be honoured,” says Waterford. “The stability of knowing that the law doesn’t change capriciously, that there is very little sovereign risk that the government is going to come in and unpick what investment decisions you’ve made.” Although he points out Australia didn’t stand out as much on this front, in the past.
Listen to the full episode of Just Chat with Committee for Sydney CEO Eamon Waterford here.
