Hurriyet Babacan AM appointed Chair of Regional Development Australia Tropical North
A highly experienced academic and organisational leader has been appointed as chair of the region’s key economic development body and is bringing a plethora of fresh ideas to the role.
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The new chair of the region’s key economic development body says she will focus on the Far North’s housing and workforce shortages as she begins her two-year term.
Professor Hurriyet Babacan was appointed last week as the Regional Development Australia Tropical North chair.
Ms Babacan, who has has tackled issues including drought resilience in remote economies in previous roles, says she iss keen to fixing her mind on the socio-economic issues beleaguering FNQ.
“Each region is unique, so its own economic development is unique,” Ms Babacan said.
“This region has major road infrastructure challenges. It has digital connectivity challenges. We have challenges relating to water, governance, workforce shortages and housing. We’re on the cusp of the Asia Pacific but we’re not well connected to it.
“We need to innovate by responding to new opportunities and enhancing existing initiatives to enable strategic regional development solutions to create jobs and grow the Tropical North’s economy.
“The RDA Tropical North Board can assist this process by looking beyond our region and engaging across Northern Australia and the Asia Pacific Region.”
Ms Babacan has held roles including the Victorian manager for the prime minister, Tablelands Regional Council chief executive and the foundation director of the Cairns Institute.
She said the timing of her arrival to the role allowed her the opportunity to bring diverse experience and practised knowledge to issues such as FNQ’s housing shortages.
“Many areas are losing staff because they don’t have the houses to accommodate them,” she said.
“Workforce shortages and housing shortages, these issues are hand-in-hand.
“There’s lots of council land that sits dormant. I know council has been doing some work around by-laws that have been preventing second dwellings on large blocks of land. Home-owners want to do it and rent those dwellings out but the by-laws won’t allow them.
“I’m looking forward to the term ahead … and I’m looking forward to the ideas from the ground up.”
Ms Babacan said another challenge was getting advocacy groups to work together.
“We have a lot of key bodies but working together is the challenge,” Professor Babacan said.
“RDA is in a good position to co-ordinate that collaboration, to stop the duplication and stop fragmentation.”
Originally published as Hurriyet Babacan AM appointed Chair of Regional Development Australia Tropical North
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