Bernard Salt tells Future Gold Coast forum city needs ‘major infrastructure’ within a decade

Leading demographer Bernard Salt has told a forum the Gold Coast needs major infrastructure delivered ‘within a decade’. Here’s what he thinks needs to be done.

Panel discussion at the Future Gold Coast forum.

LEADING demographer Bernard Salt has told the Gold Coast Bulletin’s Future Gold Coast forum that the city needs major infrastructure delivered within the next decade.

Mr Salt, who was the keynote speaker at the forum at the Sea World Convention Centre, said the city would reach a population of one million people during the 2030s.

“The Gold Coast was not something which was conceived by government. It was conceived by the will of the Australian people,” he said.

“You need railway, you need tramway, you need infrastructure and you need this over the next decade.

“Now, the question is, what could trigger major infrastructure in the next decade in order to deliver that fluidity of life? That is clearly what is required in this community.”

Bernard Salt speaks at the Future Gold Coast forum.

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Mr Salt said the Gold Coast must leverage the opportunities of the 2032 Southeast Queensland Olympic Games to get the infrastructure it needs to cope with its spiking population.

During his presentation Mr Salt said the needed to embrace its destiny during the 2020s.

“The first thing to do now is to embrace the fact that this city is headed towards one million and that it is shaped like a sausage … we need a north-south railway line or tramway by 2030,” he said.

“To deliver fluidity by 2030 we need to nominate and reinforce regional centres most likely at Southport, Surfers Paradise, Robina and Coolangatta… and we need a world’s best practice airport with agribusiness freight capacity.

“The Gold Coast is naturally entrepreneurial, so let’s leverage that by creating an exemplar start-up and scale-up community on the Coast.

“For example business wards for under 30s, festivals of new businesses, start up down south but scale up here.

“We need to carve out as large a slice of the SEQ32 pie as possible, including venues, infrastructure, training, events and pre-bid entertaining.”

Mayor Tom Tate speaks at the Future Gold Coast forum.

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Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate kicked off the forum by saying the city was in flux.

Cr Tate said diversification of the economy was important to the Gold Coast, moving beyond tourism as the key plank of its economy.

“As parents of our city this is what we want for our kids and that is why today’s seminar is important in giving focus to what we are doing for the next generation and the generations beyond,” he said.

“When you speak to parents some are saying they are looking at staying on the Gold Coast as their home and this can be replicated throughout the city.

“What is quintessential Gold Coast is that our kids can live and play into our city. If we can do this we can nail it.”