Cafe Society: Feel the fear ... and do it anyway

WHY should we embrace growth? Because failing to grow is not an option, says our special panel of guests on Tasmania’s future.

Why shouldn’t we fear growth? We asked our special Cafe Society panel guests, from left, Stephen Baxter, Mike Grainger, Tara Howell, Barbara McGregor, Saul Eslake, Matt Fishburn, Leigh Carmichael and Brooke Webb.
Picture: RICHARD JUPE

PART of what distinguishes humans from dogs and fish is our aspirations for our descendants, says leading economist Saul Eslake. “Growth is a way of achieving those aspirations, but it has to be sustainable and inclusive.”

Growth inevitably means change. The idea of change, though, sometimes brings fear. Here at the Mercury, we notice a persistent resistance to change from some readers.

In our first Cafe Society forum, we set out to explore both the legitimacy and irrationality of that response. On one hand, it is right to feel uneasy about the risks of unmanaged and poorly managed growth in a place that so cherishes its wild nature and built heritage. And when Hobart’s liveability is declining on measures such as traffic congestion and rental housing affordability, it’s easy to feel wary.

On the other hand, the necessity of ongoing robust growth if we are to meet looming demographic challenges and tackle entrenched socioeconomic disadvantage is often unacknowledged.

And so is the unfortunate truth that many Tasmanians are not benefiting from the current boom.

First, let’s gloat a bit. Who’d have thought, huh? Who’d have thought we’d be sitting so pretty right now, enjoying the golden era that detonated so unexpectedly from the doldrums of the state’s post-GFC recession?

Though Leigh Carmichael has been an integral part of Tasmania’s transformation in the past six or seven years, Mona’s founding creative director can hardly believe the change himself some days.

“When I used to visit Melbourne in the early planning stages of Mona I was invisible,” says Carmichael, who now runs its DarkLab offshoot.

“I was embarrassed to say I was from Tasmania because it made my comments and opinions worth far less. Now I speak around Australia and everybody wants to move here, everybody wants to know what the secret is. They are looking to us [for inspiration and answers].”

Here’s a snapshot from economist Eslake on where we are now: a series of fortuitous circumstances — external and completely out of our control — has combined with stimulus from extraordinary developments such as Mona to create a period of sustained positive growth.

Now here is Eslake’s unnerving economic forecast: “If we do as well as we have done over the past four years, we will nonetheless go from having material living standards that are about 20 per cent below the rest of the country to having living standards that are 40 per cent below the rest of the country in 25 years’ time.”

Yikes! But not yikes to growth. That is the clear message emerging from our forum. The real yikes is to the prospect of no growth. If we are going to fear something, let it be stagnation and decline.

IS it time to feel the fear and do it anyway?

“One of the most ridiculous quotes you hear is ‘don’t be afraid to take the risk’,” says Carmichael. “Well, at Mona we were very, very afraid, but we took the risk anyway. Without the fear you can’t be brave.

“I think if you went out and asked people whether they want better education and better opportunities for their kids, more prosperity and better aged care, the answer would be yes. If you asked them if they want growth, the answer would be no. And there’s a real problem there because sustainable growth is what is going to allow us to have those things.”

Fearmongering, generated for example by local politicians in relation to fast-growing tourism, is another thing altogether, he suggests. “If [that kind of] fear becomes widespread we are going to miss the opportunity.”

Business leader Mike Grainger, who is managing director of Liferaft Systems Australia and chair of both the TT-Line Spirit of Tasmania and the Brand Tasmania Council, knows all about flourishing in the good times and weathering the tough ones.

Exceedingly positive about Tasmania’s future, he is more phlegmatic than Eslake over demographic challenges, which are associated mostly with our rapidly ageing and dependent population.

“I don’t share the pessimism of some in the community,” says Grainger, adding that Hobart could sustain a million people if it were planned for properly with the right infrastructure.

“The opportunities for growth in the state are infinite. We have to embrace growth to provide for future generations. We should not fear it, we should manage it and make sure everyone in the community, including government, understands we have to grow. We cannot stay the same.

“It’s so easy to be negative … and I think we can put a lot more energy into driving aspiration and building confidence in our abilities across the board in Tassie.”

Grainger says we need to encourage more entrepreneurship. “We have been very fortunate to have people like David Walsh and Mark Ryan [Tassal] who are eager to continue their expansions and promote the state, but they are not given a lot of incentive.”

While Grainger encourages Tasmanians to seize on “the next big thing”, young tourism and design entrepreneur Tara Howell, of Blue Derby Pods Ride and S. Group, talks about the importance of new projects aligning with an agreed set of values. Maybe we just got lucky with the Mona alignment, she suggests.

“What if a [next-best-thing] entrepreneur is pushing something that a community doesn’t hold at its heart? I don’t think we can say ‘new idea, big thing, go for it’ until we have agreed on what Tasmania stands for.”

In his role as managing director of The20 advertising and marketing agency, Matt Fishburn sees how unhelpful a binary argument about growth can be.

“The conversation is often ‘growth or no growth’, an either/or proposition and growth tends to be defined as development in terms of high buildings or more people, but it’s much more than that.”

As part of State Government branding project The Naked State this year, The20 interviewed 200 Tasmanians about what makes the state unique.

“What I am hearing from people is that we want a better version of ourselves – and I think that idea could replace this [more threatening] notion of growth,” says Fishburn.

It is frustration rather than fear in the community, he adds.

A lot of it, our panel agrees, is a response to infrastructure lag. The prosperity lock-out affecting many Tasmanians plays a big part, too.

On this front, Eslake and others are calling for interventions to enable the fairer redistribution of wealth.

Bringing in broader-based but lower state payroll and land taxes would help government raise the revenue needed to better care for those most in need, he says.

Without these adaptations, Tasmania’s deepest problems are likely to remain, he says, adding there is already a growing backlash to the boom from people whose only experience with it is financial stress as they struggle to find and afford homes to rent.

TASSAL head of engagement Barbara McGregor speaks passionately about the need to foster stronger links between industry, community and education. Her impression is that a lot of people don’t understand why growth is necessary and don’t see the opportunities it presents to them.

McGregor says companies including Tassal need to play a more proactive role in changing those perceptions through greater engagement and initiatives, including career counselling at regional high schools (to share the message, say, that jobs that were once manual now need an IT capability, so stick with it ’til Year 12, kiddo).

Big business also needs to give more back to the regional communities it works in, she says. “We’ve really started doing that this year, really unpacking values so we can align. We are asking local communities ‘what can we do for you?’”

As for the future, McGregor urges Tasmanians to accommodate the big-picture fact that the world’s need for marine-based protein is growing and that supporting well-managed Australian salmon farms leaves us less vulnerable to inferior imports produced by less regulated enterprises.

Tasmanian Baptists leader Stephen Baxter sees great value in engagement across sectors to help solve some of our most challenging systemic problems.

“We have generational issues of unemployment and illiteracy that are really deep in our community that we have not touched yet,” says the senior pastor.

“Why do we need growth? Because we need the Government and community to have the finances to get behind some of these deep issues.”

Taste of Tasmania festival director Brooke Webb spent her formative years in New York City where “the word growth was synonymous with progress”. Since arriving in Tasmania late last year, she has picked up on a desire for change “but not too much change”. Hired to revitalise the summer food festival, Webb says the “tired” Taste is a solid example of the perils of stagnation. “The brand of the Taste was at an all-time low.”

Much of her challenge, she says, is in winning back public trust in the festival eroded by disappointment. She emphasises its role as an incubator for small food businesses.

Now that doesn’t sound too scary. We need growth, our panel agrees, but growth needs a heart.

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