Our city’s future
CITY of Greater Geelong Mayor Bruce Harwood will be meeting with AirAsia officials in Kuala Lumpur today, before returning home tomorrow from his fact-finding mission to Poland, Scotland, Italy and Malaysia.
His trip has been attacked as “a junket” but I defended Cr Harwood back in the early and mid 2000s when he travelled widely to learn about biotechnology and push Geelong’s case to be recognised as a world biotech centre, and I am happy to do so again.
Back then he was the prime mover on council in developing close relations between the CoGG and Deakin University in biotech, was a prime mover in the creation of BioGeelong and also Enterprise Geelong, which wrongly, I think, merged into the broader council managerial structure.
Cr Harwood, a councillor for 13 years, former Mayor in 2006 and 2008 and four times deputy mayor, has long had a vision for transitioning Geelong and has worked hard in that regard.
I admit I have a friendship with Cr Harwood through the Geelong Amateur Football Club, but we have had our moments and do not always see eye to eye on local issues.
I too have long held vision for Geelong’s future, including bio- technology.
For more than 20 years I have pointed to the Scottish city of Dundee as an example of what Geelong can achieve in biotech — and now also in IT — and Geelong has also more recently joined Dundee as a UNESCO City of Design.
Utrecht, in The Netherlands, is another place that has impressed me and that I believe we can learn from. And while I have never been to Toledo, Ohio, a former workmate lives in the American city that shares many similarities with Geelong and I have supported his bid to create a sister city relationship because I believe we can both benefit.
Both Cr Harwood and the Committee for Geelong have visited Dundee and Dundee City Council officers have spoken at two Geelong events over the past decade or so.
Yes, in our modern computer age, you can learn what is happening elsewhere without leaving home, but to really get a full understanding you have to visit such places and talk to the movers and shakers or, as Dundee does also, go out and sell what you have to offer to the world.
One other matter I would like to touch on, which I also believe important to Geelong’s future, is the concern being expressed about Geelong having too many voices — G21, Committee for Geelong business and other groups — lobbying for competing priorities.
As I’ve said in the past, this situation is not new as I can remember former Hamer Government Minister for State Development and Decentralisation, the late Murray Byrne, telling me back in the 1970s that we were a joke in Spring Street because the 11 local councils did not work together for the regional good. For nearly two decades, through the Geelong Regional Commission, Geelong did look at issues through a regional perspective, but the shortsighted decision by then Premier Jeff Kennett to sack the GRC back in the early 1990s took us back to the bad old days. I believe we can realise that elusive ‘One Strong Voice for Geelong’ motto put forward by the Geelong Local Government Review — headed by Patricia Heath 28 years ago, and of which I was a member — which recommended municipal amalgamation. About that time, during the Pyramid Building Society collapse, former mayor of the preamalgamation City of Geelong Brian Fowler took the leadership role, called together local council, business and other organisations — including this newspaper — and went in to bat for Geelong. About five years later, the first Mayor of the City of Greater Geelong, Gerry Smith, showed similar mayoral leadership and did the same thing during the then Ford crisis. Perhaps Mayor Harwood who, through the councillors who elected him, is the elected leader of the people of our region could call in all the relevant local business, industry, education, health and other organisations to agree on priorities and take the leadership role in delegations to Spring Street, Canberra and elsewhere?