High Steaks: Former Qld premier Peter Beattie on renewable energy, Brisbane 2032 and David Crisafulli
Peter Beattie is back in his early 40s, and Labor is asking him to run in a safe seat with a view to becoming premier. Does he take it? Not on your life. WELCOME TO HIGH STEAKS
He hasn’t lost the split watermelon grin, the laughter is just as uproarious and that sunny optimism, his defining characteristic, appears to have ratcheted up a notch as he reaches his eighth decade.
“The golden years are here again!’’ Peter Beattie beams over a fish lunch at the Sofitel in Brisbane Central, sending forth those positive vibes as he did almost every day from 1998 to 2007 when he was our 36th premier - the one who swam with sharks to entertain the media.
He regularly admitted fault, (“we got it wrong and we’re going to fix it’’) he befriended his political antagonists (Brisbane Liberal Mayor Campbell Newman and National Party leader Lawrence Springborg) and he appeared to tap dance effortlessly across one decade of rule, nimbly soft-shoeing round scandals such as the Shepherdson Inquiry into electoral fraud without ever being tainted by any sense of serious corruption.
That period dovetailed with John Howard’s prime ministership and many Queenslanders will remember it as a time of stability and prosperity even as Beattie beavered away at re-engineering the state’s identity, using our mining agricultural and tourism wealth as a springboard to creating the “smart state’’ now making its presence felt around the globe.
Today, at 72, there’s nothing pollyannish in his positive outlook. He still has his gripes, like any ordinary citizen, about the ‘stupidity’ of some politicians, especially those who insist the nation shut down its old coal and gas fired electricity generators before the renewable revolution arrives.
Beattie, who opened up the state’s gas industry and paved the way for more coal mines, is still a renewables evangelist.
But, like the sensible North Queensland lad he once was, he sees no sense in junking the old electricity generator before the new one arrives.
“I am a great believer in you keep what you have, and you build on that and you change gradually,’’ he says.
“That is what China is doing.
“They have a transition to energy that we could only dream of by using coal and gas while still building renewables - they are doing both.
“They are going to have a smooth transition; we have stuffed it up to be honest.’’
So, stuffed up electricity grid aside, what about those golden years?
Well, they’re right around the corner and the reason is the mass migration of southerners into the state combined with the looming 2032 Olympic Games.
“Look, Queensland is sitting in the absolute hot seat because Sydney is so expensive,’’ Beattie says.
“And it’s not just housing - everything in Sydney is expensive, the tolls in Sydney are off the planet.’’
Small businessmen such as self employed tradesmen and women who he believes drive economies will swarm into Queensland, selling their tiny house in Sydney and exchanging it for a house with a back yard and pool in Queensland with plenty of money left over.
Fuse that influx of economic energy with the 2032 Olympics and you have a recipe for unprecedented growth and opportunity.
“If you couple interstate migration with the biggest sporting event we have ever, ever had _ well, we have never ever had anything like this in Queensland.’’
The Olympics is far beyond a sporting event. It is a vehicle to market Queensland to the entire world.
“Suddenly you’ve got the world’s attention and that very rarely happens,’’ Beattie says.
“You can promote out smart industries, our smart innovation, not just tourism, tourism is the obvious, but it’s all the other things where you want to attract investment.’’
Andrew Liveris, President of the Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee, has to be given freedom to plan the show, he says.
“And that’s because he knows what he is doing.’’
Beattie served on the UQ Education Board with him in the United States and believes Liveris to be a “very clever guy’’.
“He’s smart, he’s got links around the world he knows how to build things that’s what he did when he was running his major corporations, he is good at it.
“As long as he is not impeded by political nonsense, he will do a really good job.’
“I know politics, you have to have an involvement in this, I am not silly, everything is political.
“But in terms of running an event, you could not get a better chairman and we are lucky to have him and I think we just have to let him have his head.’’
The Victoria Park stadium has his support, provided it’s not at the expense of Suncorp Stadium.
“Build a new one by all means, but you’ve got to make sure you upgrade Suncorp because you need a rectangular one for rugby league rugby union and soccer and you need a round one for AFL and cricket.’’
Beattie warns the government of granting exclusivity to the private sector when it comes to building Victoria Park.
“The real trick in this, this is the heart of it, is if they have private money in Victoria Park, they will want exclusivity for concerts and certain events.
“And you cannot allow that.’’
What Beattie wants is Suncorp and Victoria Park competing vigorously for events.
“I would like to see both of them compete for events, and that way you get the best of both worlds and the winners are the people of Queensland.’’
Innovation - new processes, new techniques, new ways of creating value - is still at the forefront of Beattie’s mind.
He still sees innovation as the pathway to a bright future, just as it was when he and his team came up with the “Smart State’’ slogan which appeared on our number plates for the first decade of the new millennium.
He urges the new State Government (and all Australian governments) to keep the faith and forge partnership with our key universities, research institutes and industry to make Australia a world leader in commercialising innovation in everything from mining services to IT, agriculture to medical science, growing the economy and creating the jobs of tomorrow.
“We have the brains, but we lack the bipartisanship, coordination, and strategic investment to make it happen to our full potential. That must change or we will be left behind.’’
He can’t be accused of squibbing it when he was in charge. Beattie’s hard charging on innovation gave us the Queensland Brain Institute along with a host of other bodies aligned with universities which are now recognised inside the global research and development community.
Beattie’s view of the future is best embodied by Australia’s largest life science investment fund Brandon BioCatalyst, a leader in the commercialisation of medical research which is backing the EBR company which has just received FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval for their heart device _ a world first for Australia.
In the interests of full disclosure, he’s anxious to point out he’s been a director of Brandon BioCatalyst since 2010, and current Chair while also an investor in EBR.
But he’s irritated that we don’t do more of this sort of thing.
How is it that Australia with all its sunshine did not become a leader in solar technology?
“We have more bloody sunlight than anyone else yet we haven’t led the world in selling solar.’’.
Yet we are talented innovators in medical science, engineering and even what many consider the more boring end of the spectrum - mining.
“Settling dust on a mine site, using more targeted explosives, making buckets...
“People say, ‘well is that exciting?
“Well of course it is because you can sell the damn thing, it’s value adding.’’
He’s proud of his contribution to the NRL, a game he knows from the ground up when he started playing in Atherton as a kid and marvels that we now have four teams rather than just one along with things like the Magic Round and Women State of Origin.
And he’s got his own Queensland heroes that he admires deeply. Sister Angela Mary Doyle of Mater Hospital fame who is 100 in August in one, as is Gold Coast and Queensland Tourism guru, Terry Jackman. Both, Beattie believes, are the sort of quiet Australians who go on achieving for others rather than themselves,a trait being lost to the age of the “selfie.’’
As for his successor, David Crisafulli, he has the warmest wishes, largely because he has five grandkids.
“From my point of view, when you get old like me, all you worry about are your kids and grandkids.
“And you just want the state to do well.
“I just want him to succeed.
“I could not wish him any more good will to be perfectly honest.’’
But would he do it all over again if you could wind him back to his early 40s, and Labor was asking him to run in a safe seat with a view to becoming Premier?
Not on your life.
“I wouldn’t do it,’ he says, adding the primary reason for his reluctance would be social media.
Beattie recalls running against Lawrence Springborg twice, and both men survived years of political combat with their affection for one another intact.
“We battled over policy and government decisions. It was never personal,’’ Beattie says.
“He is a decent Queenslanders who I have always respected and liked. That is the way politics should operate. After all, we are all Australians regardless of our political views.’’
Today, the landscape has changed dramatically.
“Social media has had a lot of positives, I am not stupid, a lot of positives.
“But it has also enabled a whole lot of people to be unpleasantly nasty.
“My view is, I see people everyday and maybe I don’t like what they stand for.
“But it doesn’t mean that I don’t like them.’’
Yet special media has infected politics to the point of it becoming a cesspit of personal assassinations and blame games.
“The concept of serving the community is slowly dying under the weight of nasty social media trolling, slick shallow election campaigns and negative advertising,’’ Beattie says.
“I wouldn’t enter politics these days.
“And I know that will please some to hear.”
Originally published as High Steaks: Former Qld premier Peter Beattie on renewable energy, Brisbane 2032 and David Crisafulli
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