Victoria’s young leaders reveal their game-changing ideas to take the state into the future
From rent-to-buy housing schemes and a solar city, to developing a uniquely Melbourne cuisine and embracing dogs, these are the big ideas of Victoria’s young leaders.
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These are the big ideas of Victoria’s young leaders.
LISA TEH: DIGITAL ENTREPRENEUR
Let’s be the next Silicon Valley, backed by an annual innovation festival
Establish and host Australia’s top innovation festival in Melbourne every year. Engage the world’s top business minds to become official mentors of Melbourne and nurture our future leaders. Let universities and industry collaborate to promote new tech innovation. Turn Melbourne into a smart city by working with our councils to pioneer new technology that has been created locally. Let’s make our great city the place where the technology that changes the world is born.
JACKSON MEYER
TECH AND LOGISTICS ENTREPRENEUR
Melbourne can lead in online virtual retailing
Interactive, online virtual stores allow customers to browse the aisles and pick their products off the shelves. The concept has been proving popular for fashion and beauty retailers in the UK and the US, with global brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Charlotte Tilbury. Victorian-based brands can lead the world in this new technology and already popular brands, all based in Melbourne, will launch their virtual stores soon.
GORDI
SINGER/SONGWRITER AND DOCTOR
Turn public space into live arts sites
An initiative that will enrich Melbourne’s future is the transformation of existing public spaces into accessible, safe, and innovative live performance spaces used year-round. Music, arts and entertainment are the soul of Melbourne, and the fabric of the city is enriched by its diversity. This diversity should be celebrated through live performances, which reflect stories of First Nations people, persons with disabilities, migrants and refugees and the queer community.
MARCUS STEWART
CO-CHAIR OF FIRST PEOPLES’ ASSEMBLY OF VICTORIA
Large-scale indigenous revegetation programs
Climate change is a big problem but many of the solutions we need to embrace are simple. If we backed large-scale, natural resource management programs for Traditional Owner groups, we could help restore nature while also delivering economic benefits to the communities who would manage the land and benefit from the carbon credits we could generate. Imagine that: using our ancient knowledge and connection with Country to tackle climate change and boost Australia’s opportunities in a new clean global economy.
AHMED HASSAN
YOUTH LEADER
Youth skills internship program
A harrowing side-effect of Victoria’s rolling lengthy lockdowns has been youth unemployment, which has increased by nearly 50 per cent over the past year. My big idea for Future Victoria would be to dedicate sustainable funding to youth internships that address skills shortages, empowering young people by diversifying their skill sets and experiences – a solution that would have a positive knock-on effect in all aspects of their lives, not just employment.
ELLEN SANDELL
GREENS STATE MP FOR MELBOURNE
Rent assistance program to revive the CBD
We need to reimagine what our CBD is for and why people will travel to it. With more people working from home, the CBD will no longer just be a place for 9-5 workers who are forced to come into an office. Instead, it can be a place people come for unique experiences, like festivals, arts and one-of-a-kind businesses. Governments should look at paying a percentage of the rent for creative industries, small businesses and not-for-profits for five years, in exchange for signing long-term leases in the CBD.
CLARE O’NEIL
LABOR FEDERAL MP FOR HOTHAM
Government-backed rent-to-buy scheme
Owning your home is the great Australian dream but that dream is becoming out of reach for many. We cannot accept a future where those who got us through Covid – workers in retail, childcare, aged care, for example – are worse off than before. A government-backed, rent-to-buy scheme could open this dream up once again. If the three levels of government partnered with the private sector, we could provide affordable housing for Victorians.
TIM WILSON
LIBERAL FEDERAL MP FOR GOLDSTEIN
Use industry superannuation to fund renewable energy
Industry super should be mined to make Melbourne the home of renewable energy finance for the world. Melbourne’s economic strength came from cheap coal electricity which powered competitive manufacturing. Despite myths, manufacturing continues to thrive, adjusting to changing global demand. The same is now true with energy, and we need cheap energy to back competitive sectors to grow jobs. Long-term, future-focused finance should be geared to lay the foundations of cleaner economic growth for all.
BACHAR HOULI
FORMER RICHMOND PLAYER AND BACHAR HOULI FOUNDATION FOUNDER
Empower Islamic people to be role models and leaders
To create an environment where Islamic people can thrive and be role models for the rest of the community. There are currently too few of us in public-facing roles. We want to empower hundreds of Islamic youths to step up into these positions of representation. Our vision at the Bachar Houli Foundation is to use the power of sport and the sense of belonging that sport provides, to make these opportunities possible for young Muslim people.
SKYE KINDER
2019 YOUNG VICTORIAN OF THE YEAR
Overhaul medical training to get more doctors in the country
Postcodes are incredibly powerful, particularly when it comes to our health. Where we live and work remain major predictors for health outcomes. For rural and regional Victorians, these outcomes are still not equitable. We need to support more young people from the regions to train as doctors. Admission processes for medical school should be radically overhauled: preference should be given to applicants from disadvantaged, marginalised and under-represented backgrounds; reliance on ATAR scores should be scrapped and nepotism should become a thing of the past.
ZAC DUFF
JIGSPACE CO-FOUNDER
Establish a Centre for Excellence in 3D Technology
Victoria punches well above its weight in the global game development market. With the advent of the Metaverse using core game technology, we want to double down on the skill and creativity we have here and establish a Centre for Excellence in 3D Technology in Melbourne. The centre would drive education and skill development for the sector but also attract the brightest minds from across Australia and the world to conduct deep research and development into the technology that underpins the next major computing platform – the spatial Metaverse.
CHARLIE CARRINGTON
ATLAS DINING HEAD CHEF
Create a regional Melbourne cuisine
We’re privileged in Australia to have a rich and vibrant food culture. Yet interestingly, “Australian” as a cuisine doesn’t exist. This means Melbourne lacks its own regional identity. My idea is to disrupt this and define and/or create a distinctive “Melbourne cuisine” that people across the world will recognise and travel to experience. The team at Atlas will do this by banding with Melbourne chefs, First Nations peoples, immigrants who now call Melbourne home, as well as a wider array of our community. So we can collectively create dishes, a food-print and framework that will truly create a legacy for our beautiful state.
TAYLA HARRIS
AFLW PLAYER, BOXER AND MARRIAGE CELEBRANT
Let the dogs in
“Three movie tickets please, just me and my border collies.” I want Melbourne to be more like Europe and allow dogs (almost) everywhere. We treat them like children, after all, and I dare say some would prefer a bark than a tantrum or a pooper scooper over a nappy. The company of dogs is proven to be a genuine aid in fighting the mental health pandemic, so the more time spent with them the better. They should be on trains, at the footy and even at work with us — definitely no chance of distraction. A trial is all I ask, Melbourne.
ELIZABETH DOIDGE
MELBOURNE COUNCILLOR AND CFMEU ORGANISER
Become the world’s first city of net-zero buildings
Through retrofitting existing infrastructure, we can reduce our carbon emissions and energy bills to zero. Using innovative technology such as building-integrated-photovoltaics — where a building’s facade, including windows and cladding, become solar panels — combined with the City of Melbourne’s Power Melbourne initiative, electricity bills would become a thing of the past.
ALAA ELZOKM
ISLAMIC FAITH LEADER
Create a social housing program to help domestic violence victims, migrants and refugees
For a better tomorrow, we must build new social housing and offer homes for rent or ownership at reduced prices to help domestic violence victims, migrants and refugees get back on their feet. Our country is vast, and so by converting dispensable bushland or unproductive farmland into earth ready for construction we will not only create space for the housing, but facilitate public-private partnerships and further the economy.
KIM TEO
CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF HOSPITALITY TECH COMPANY Mr YUM
Melbourne should be the start-up capital, driven by more women in tech
Melbourne-founded companies are already kicking goals on the world stage, but there’s so much more to be done and one way to leap forward is to encourage more females to join the industry, including as engineers and founders. We should establish female-focused STEM education hubs and networks across Victoria, with a dedicated knowledge precinct in Melbourne. Collingwood or Cremorne are already filled with innovative start-ups, so would make for a great tech hub. We need more females doing computer science at school, graduating as engineers and building software and hardware.
JACQUI SAVAGE
MEDCORP TECHNOLOGIES FOUNDER
Establish a centre of excellence for future skills
It’s great to focus on big blue sky ideas but there is a desperate need for Victoria and Australia to address the skills and talent shortage we are experiencing. The national talent shortage predates the pandemic and Australia needs to rethink how we develop future skills. As an education-rich state, Victoria is best positioned to champion this change. Victoria should establish a Centre of Excellence for Future Skills which will close the gap between education and industry, enabling a self-sustaining pipeline of talent for Australia’s future.
EFFIE KATS
FASHION DESIGNER
Launch a campaign to back sustainable fashion
We should launch a campaign to educate consumers about how their expectations impact both the fashion industry and the environment. Consumers have become used to having things fast and on demand. We need to shift away from fast fashion, which means having excess stock and that means wastage. I’ve found if you educate customers about the why – why this is an unsustainable business model – they will support the change.
MARY ATTARD
PWC CYBER EXPERT
Make Melbourne the smartest city
We can rival Tokyo, Singapore, San Francisco and Copenhagen by becoming one of the world’s most digitally advanced smart cities. A city with digital innovation and research at its core, with a transport network that caters to real-time needs of passengers, or traffic lights responding to live traffic flow data, or access to public safety or health information based on personalised needs. Safe and secure access to government and digital services that citizens depend on everyday, such as identity verification via their smartphone.
RANA HUSSAIN
CRICKET AUSTRALIA INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY MANAGER
On game day, bring sport and vulnerable communities together
Imagine a marriage between sport and the not-for-profit sector, specifically food vans and homelessness services. Why not attach to big live sports events and local sport alike, services where our vulnerable can get a meal, a community to connect with and a couple of hours of sporting action to be enthralled by. Jump-start the wellbeing economy, where thriving and belonging for our most vulnerable are at the core of both policy, culture and profit.
JEANETTE CHEAH
EDUCATION INNOVATOR, CEO AT HEX
Mandate an ‘innovation gap year’ for students
Victoria has a growing start-up ecosystem, and to nurture even more new entrepreneurs, the Victorian education system could mandate a professional “innovation gap year” where students can connect with industry and explore the world of tech – before they start higher education or their chosen career. This year would allow curious students to get real-world experience, without risking their academic journey. It also gives them the space and time to come up with game-changing ideas, and gain the maturity and resilience to start a start-up. If a student decides not to begin a start-up after all, their future employers will benefit from the skills they have learned.
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