The Premier that wowed Washington

THE star of Turnbull’s delegation to the US, Gladys Berejiklian was lauded by locals for a speech on NSW’s economic power. Our other state leaders should take note, writes Miranda Devine.

GLADYS Berejiklian may not have had the chance to shake Donald Trump’s hand when she went to Washington, DC, last week with the Prime Minister, but in her quiet way the NSW Premier ended up being the toast of the town.

She was the only Liberal among the six Premiers and chief ministers in the Turnbull delegation but she had the best story to tell about the NSW economic triumph, which is driving national economic recovery, despite carrying the dead weight of supplicant states like South Australia.

Her speeches on infrastructure and asset recycling to American business leaders and to her American counterparts at the National Governors Association conference on the weekend were standing room only, and she had American companies such as Northrop Grumman jumping in to pledge $50 million to be part of the new city she’s planning to build around the new Badgerys Creek airport.

“When Gladys Berejiklian went through the data on her state you could see people saying, ‘Wow, we want to live there’,” says Business Council of Australia Chief executive Jennifer Westacott, who was one of 22 business leaders in the Australian delegation in Washington.

“You can’t underestimate those camaraderies that occur that make doing business easier … The work some of the states are doing, particularly NSW, on infrastructure, on asset recycling, I think everyone was blown away by that.”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was warmly received by the crowd during the National Governors Association conference in Washington. (Pic: Jose Luis Magana)

Seven CEO Kerry Stokes, said the cross-pollination between Australian state premiers and American state governors is the unheralded triumph of the Turnbull-Trump visit.

Berejiklian was blown away by the American enthusiasm for NSW. “It was absolutely amazing. People want to invest and want be more involved in what we’re doing.”

So what is it that had to say that made American governors hang on her every word and US businesses so keen to invest in our state?

The key is President Trump’s big plan to build $1 trillion in new US national infrastructure, using $200 billion in federal government “seed” money to incentivise states and cities which promise to raise their own revenue from the private sector to fund new rail, bridges roads and other projects.

So, there’s a lot of money up for grabs and NSW has already shown how to leverage private money into public infrastructure with its program of asset recycling.

“Asset recycling means you might have a government-owned asset (like a port or airport or electrical poles and wires) that’s sitting on your balance sheet not really working for you when you could offer a lease over that asset to the private sector [for, say] 30 years, 99 years … and you get capital upfront which you are able to invest in infrastructure,” says Berejiklian.

“Our message in NSW is government don’t need to run businesses that are out of date when the private sector can do that better. We can set the rules in place, but we can use that money upfront to invest in schools and hospitals and roads and rail.

“When people say to me ‘Oh, you’re leasing everything off’, we say, ‘No, what the state actually owns has increased substantially because we now own schools and hospitals and roads and rail we didn’t own before rather than half a telegraph pole.”

She says a lot of the American state governors “came up to me after my comments and said, ‘How did you do it, and how did you get through the politics of it?’.”

Berejiklian paid due credit to her predecessors, Mike Baird and Barry O’Farrell, who “had the guts to say to the community this will benefit you, and people are now seeing that we are building the largest rail project in the nation in Sydney, the largest road project in NSW. Rural and regional NSW will have more than $20 billion invested in infrastructure over the next few years which is unprecedented.

“That economic success is allowing us to drive those social opportunities and that infrastructure which otherwise wouldn’t have happened.”

The other selling point, which got Northrop Grumman on board, was her plan to build what she calls a “third city” around the upcoming third airport at Badgerys Creek Creek.

“Sydney CBD is the eastern city, Parramatta is the central city and Badgerys will be the third city in greater Sydney,” she says. “We just don’t want to build an airport. We want to it to be a new city where the jobs of the future are ... I’ve spoken to American defence companies and logistics, freight and IT companies [in Washington] and they’re all excited about setting up a precinct. For me, when you’re standing in Parramatta you’ll be looking to the west for the best jobs, not necessarily the east.

“ ... We were out of the race in manufacturing for a few decades because our labour costs were regarded as too high compared to the rest of the world but the world is changing so we’ve got a once in a generation opportunity to make sure we’re the IT hub of the southern hemisphere, that we are creating those opportunities to make sure the jobs of the future are in NSW.”

Despite her gentle demeanour, Berejiklian is super-competitive, and it’s clear who came out in front of all the other state leaders in Washington last week.

Premier, you did us proud.