Gateway to the future

Geelong’s three-city alliance armed with new data

GEELONG’S push to be recognised as one of Australia’s three “gateway” cities has a new statistical weapon to help counter historical perceptions of the cities within governments or by investors.

The Gateways Cities Alliance has launched a dashboard that will chart trends in key indicators to benchmark against capital cities.

The dashboard aims to “demythologise” the cities, using easy-to-understand, updateable data.

It was launched by applied regional economist Will

Rifkin, from the Hunter Research Foundation Centre in Newcastle, which together with Geelong and Wollongong forms the Gateway Cities Alliance.

Professor Rifkin said the three cities were concerned about how they were perceived in state capitals and in Canberra. “If we make the conditions and the performance of our cities more public, it prevents people in the state governments or the federal government, or outside investors, from adhering to an old version or an old view of our cities,” Professor Rifkin said.

Initial data sets track population, housing costs and employment in different sectors but it is intended for the dashboard to develop measures that are agreed by government, business and community stakeholders as significant to the cities’ futures.

Professor Rifkin said the dashboard shouldn’t just provide data, “it should really provide a focus on key questions”.

The dashboard was launched in a Gateway Cities Alliance webinar last week.

Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes told the webinar her city was pushing for a three-tiered approach to investment in government infrastructure that recognised that, as a Gateway City, Newcastle was “definitely not a regional town” and required metropolitan-style infrastructure.

Cr Nelmes said a recent submission to the NSW government had identified that Newcastle had “missed out” on more than $170m in funding due to the local government area not being classified as metropolitan.

She said with the need to take pressure off capital city growth, and with the lifestyle choice of living and working remotely in the regions being underlined by the experience of COVID-19 regions, it was timely to recognise the special position of Gateway Cities and their potential to contribute to economic recovery.

“(But) it needs a very specific type of funding and infrastructure spend from state and federal governments,” Cr Nelmes said.