Let’s get people moving
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THE GOLD COAST?
“I moved here with my family 14 years ago and I love the fact that it’s a community – the whole city is a community.
“The kids love it, there’s diversity, the beach culture and in the same afternoon as you’re at the beach you can be up at the Hinterland.
“It’s five minutes to anything and being from Melbourne that’s so amazing.
“Even though it’s changed, it’s still got that feeling of community and I just love it.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK CAN BE DONE BETTER ON THE GOLD COAST?
“Public transport. Coming from Melbourne, which has fantastic infrastructure and transport, I really miss that.
“I find that as we grow we’re not building infrastructure and public transport to go with it, which is really difficult if you’ve got young kids, and for tourists to get from one end to the other they’ve got to take an Uber or a bus.
“We need better public transport, not just up and down the Coast but east to west as well.”
IN YOUR TRAVELS. WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN BEING DONE ELSEWHERE YOU THINK COULD WORK WELL HERE?
“I studied in Paris and one thing I found as a student was the diversity and opportunities that were open to students to learn with businesses and get real life experiences.
“That was really critical for
me and I think it could happen on the Gold Coast.
“We’re a smaller city but we’re a city and there should be more opportunities for young people – we’ve got the industries and the businesses, we just need to open them up.”
IF MONEY, LAWS, TIME AND APPROVALS WERE NO ISSUE, WHAT IS ONE BIG PROJECT YOU’D UNDERTAKE TOMORROW?
“Major transport infrastructure, getting people around.
“Mostly I’m talking about getting locals travelling – getting people from the beach to the Hinterland, connecting all the schools and really freeing up the roads.
“That would change the dynamic of the city. We’ve got
the basics, but we need to ramp it up, put it on steroids.
“I would love to see a monorail or bullet train, something that is really fast to get people who work in Brisbane up there and back quickly.
“At the moment everything is slow and our roads can’t cope with adding another tramline or anything like that.
“We need to look at what other countries are doing and
incorporate new ways of thinking about how to move people around fast.”
WHAT CONVERSATIONS SHOULD GOLD COAST MOVERS AND SHAKERS BE HAVING?
“They should be talking about nurturing the talent we have in the city and keeping our locals here.
“We need to nurture new industries. We’re all about post-Games, but what are we leaving our kids?
“We’ve got to be able to give them diversity and opportunity to look beyond what’s already here and to the next Gold Coast.
“There are some amazing young people coming through in the city now, we need to support them.”