Not as many nimbies in SA as it appears, says UniSA vice-chancellor David Lloyd

SA’s long had an image of nimbyism – but the reality behind the overly loud group is far different, says the head of UniSA.

Anti-development “nimbies” opposed to change in South Australia have loud voices but are “few and far between” and unrepresentative of the general population, says University of South Australia vice-chancellor David Lloyd.

Commenting on the state’s image and acceptance of change, Professor Lloyd said South Australians said the not-in-my-backyard, or NIMBY, groups were not large but drowned out a silent majority.

“You get the nimbyism, which can be expressed in people who might be anti-development, but they’re few and far between them. They have loud voices, but I don’t think that’s the general population of South Australia or Adelaide,” he said.

Asked if these groups had a disproportionately large voice, Professor Lloyd said: “I don’t think it’s a large voice. I think it’s a loud voice. And I think there’s a difference.”

Professor Lloyd, also the Committee for Adelaide chairman, stressed the democratic process allowed people to get into a position to make their points.

David Lloyd, vice-chancellor of UniSA and head of the Committee for Adelaide. Picture: Tom Huntley

But he said a silent majority – proud of their state and supporting sensible change – were typically quiet in community debate about development.

“I guess if people feel really passionately about something they will step into it. Maybe that’s what’s missing on the other side – it’s the passion to say: “Actually, this is great’,” Professor Lloyd said.

In a column in Tuesday’s Advertiser, Professor Lloyd said Adelaide suffered from “comparative anxiety in general”, particularly by sizing the city and state up against the eastern seaboard.

But, in an interview with The Advertiser, Professor Lloyd said people needed to change mindset to think that Adelaide was competing as a global capital, not an Australian state capital.

“If we think of ourselves as a global capital, with all of these intellectual groups that we’ve got, with all those natural resources that we have, we should be we should be able to do anything we want,” he said.

“..I know people who would say to interstaters: ‘Don’t tell anybody it’s so good, right’. But they don’t mean it. They really want people to tell people that it is better than you could imagine.

“That’s not a chip (on their shoulders). That’s almost a point of pride. People do think that it’s a great place. But we need to be able to just be confident and the confidence comes from self-belief, not in comparison.

“At the end of the day, it’s what you’re comfortable in doing yourself and we should be comfortable in pushing South Australia.”

Professor Lloyd said opportunities for SA included capitalising on a stable political environment as a Western country to forge a business services sector as a doorway into Asia.

The unprecedented infrastructure spend, including the $15.4bn Torrens to Darlington motorway and $3.2bn Women’s and Children’s Hospital, would spur skilled engineering and services sector growth.

“We could be the testbed, the proving ground for those capacities and capabilities to translate to other states where they’ve got other projects. So when Sydney are building their airport, they might take some of the expertise for South Australia and build their own, but it’ll be a South Australian-based expertise. So let’s not just waste that opportunity,” he said.

“The capacity to do that large-scale transformational infrastructure project work should be an industry in and of itself for South Australia.”

Professor Lloyd also highlighted the AUKUS security pact, stressing the business and technology exchange extended far beyond the planned construction in Adelaide of nuclear-powered submarines.

This also would involve a transformation of the infrastructure at Osborne Naval Shipyard to accommodate the vast scale of the nuclear submarine workforce.

“We’re not talking about multiple nuclear physicists here. We’re talking about systems engineers, electronic engineers, mechanical engineers, chemists, physicists … we’re talking about human factors: psychologists, loads of IT people, supply chain, logistics, the HR managers, IR managers, tech transfer …” Professor Lloyd said.

“It’s much more than just like – we’re going to build the boat. It’s a complicated project and it requires that kind of level of technical sophistication and management sophistication to do it properly.

“So we need to have that skill set here and that should be, as I say, the SWAT team who get dropped on other things.”