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03/05/2020
“The rapid crisis response has accelerated the rate of change and has seen the emergence of many new ideas and thinking across all facets of community life – from business, to the local level of change, even in our own homes,” she said.
“What’s going to be important is how we apply this to continue throughout the response phase and the recovery post COVID-19.
“Over the last eight weeks there have been many changes in education delivery that have been across all stages of the education spectrum…. one of the most traditional of services and one that isn’t renowned necessarily for its way of outside of the classroom.
“It really busts that myth that you can’t get a good education in the regions, because indeed what we have demonstrated is you can get a good education anywhere in your own home with technology.
“The next myth we have busted is that you can’t get meaningful employment in regional areas.
“Video conferencing, tele conference meetings, working from home. In the emerging technologies of self-isolation this has really seen the application of many traditional business roles done from an at home environment that has never seen before. This crisis has truly seen us adapt in the employment space throughout the regions.
“Finally, the acceleration of technology has given us new ways of staying connected and engaged outside of our traditional communities, showing us regardless where you live you can access a concert, see an orchestra, and actually co-produce with many collaborators across the world, in many different forums.
“These are real game changers for what will be critical to build on the long-established resilience within regional communities.
“(These) changes need us to apply some discipline to ensure we continue to build on these technological emergences. The need to continue with this momentum that has been built from the crisis in technology and its application will really ensure that we can increase population in the regions and therefore grow the economy in that area.”
Traditional challenges faced by regional communities also represent opportunity for a ‘renaissance’ she said.
“What we will see is an emergence of population back into the regions. As we ‘build things people want to buy,’ and we do that locally, and we invest in those infrastructure projects which will create local jobs in regional areas, and we access regional sites and attractions, taking ourselves back into an emerging tourism economy, and we indeed invest in the healthcare systems which are critical for liveability in regional areas and I think if we continue to embrace research that has been done locally around what attracts people to live in regions – I do see this will actually be a renaissance - not at all a paring back of regional capability,” she said.
Also participating in the livestream discussion was Laguna Bay Pastoral Company Chief Executive Officer, Tim McGavin, who touched on the impact on supply chains and consumer behaviour.
“We’ve seen massive disruptions to supply chains,” he said.
“It’s just been incredible the disruption generally (and) to business and assumptions that we’ve all made and taken for granted – having access to things and availability to things and access to markets, which overnight has just stopped.
“I actually think that might be a good thing for regional areas, particularly as we see change in not only consumer behaviour but also patterns in the supply chain, as the consumer probably wants to get closer to the producer and interact directly them with.
“During the GFC you had regulation on ‘too big to fail’ companies…and it’s highly likely you’ll have regulation on essential companies – pharmaceutical, a lot of food manufacturing, medical equipment and supplies and not only do I think we will do more of that domestically here which should be great for regional areas, we can capture some of that.
“I (also) think we will certainly see a shift towards decentralisation of processing. We’ve seen some big disruption in your super manufacturing processing plants particularly in the United States… and as part of global chains, procurement will be looking at ‘ok, how concentrated is my supply risk and how I can diversify this across many different regions’.”
Mr McGavin also touched on inventory from both a supplier and consumer side, saying inventory levels were likely to increase and therefore take pressure off the supply chain being perfect.
Other areas of potential change Mr McGavin touched on was the role of digital platforms in distribution, automation and movement towards zero touch food production.
Speaking on the difference of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the GFC, Mr McGavin said that the crisis was still playing out, “so we’re making assumptions. Its really consumption being hit but it’s also a supply shock.
“We’ve never had the mandated closure of whole sectors.
“The policy response for this (crisis) has been a massive humanitarian effort which has been just great to see from a social perspective. It’s been about printing money and lots of it to flow straight into households – mainly via wage support.
“That sort of monetary action we have not seen before ever at this scale and coordinated so it is going to be more inflationary eventually.
“In the GFC unemployment didn’t rise too much, whereas now we’ve got millions of people queuing up at Centrelink who never in their wildest dreams ever thought they would be doing that.
“This may change the psychology of consumption going forward and lead to more austerity and people chasing a lower cost of living. Regional areas may do well with that as people reassess what’s important.
“We’re building huge, huge debts from these deficits that’s being built on stuff that is not going to yield a return for future generations, so I think that’s going to be problematic.
“I think the unwinding of this is going to be very difficult from two perspectives. One, because this is inflationary it’s going to be more tweaky but also from a political perspective. You’ve had a lot of unskilled, unemployed have had their incomes doubled and you’ve got Labor saying they want that to stay so there’s going to be enormous political pressure and it is going to be very difficult to unwind that expansion in the public sector I think.”
“What’s going to be important is how we apply this to continue throughout the response phase and the recovery post COVID-19.
“Over the last eight weeks there have been many changes in education delivery that have been across all stages of the education spectrum…. one of the most traditional of services and one that isn’t renowned necessarily for its way of outside of the classroom.
“It really busts that myth that you can’t get a good education in the regions, because indeed what we have demonstrated is you can get a good education anywhere in your own home with technology.
“The next myth we have busted is that you can’t get meaningful employment in regional areas.
“Video conferencing, tele conference meetings, working from home. In the emerging technologies of self-isolation this has really seen the application of many traditional business roles done from an at home environment that has never seen before. This crisis has truly seen us adapt in the employment space throughout the regions.
“Finally, the acceleration of technology has given us new ways of staying connected and engaged outside of our traditional communities, showing us regardless where you live you can access a concert, see an orchestra, and actually co-produce with many collaborators across the world, in many different forums.
“These are real game changers for what will be critical to build on the long-established resilience within regional communities.
“(These) changes need us to apply some discipline to ensure we continue to build on these technological emergences. The need to continue with this momentum that has been built from the crisis in technology and its application will really ensure that we can increase population in the regions and therefore grow the economy in that area.”
Traditional challenges faced by regional communities also represent opportunity for a ‘renaissance’ she said.
“What we will see is an emergence of population back into the regions. As we ‘build things people want to buy,’ and we do that locally, and we invest in those infrastructure projects which will create local jobs in regional areas, and we access regional sites and attractions, taking ourselves back into an emerging tourism economy, and we indeed invest in the healthcare systems which are critical for liveability in regional areas and I think if we continue to embrace research that has been done locally around what attracts people to live in regions – I do see this will actually be a renaissance - not at all a paring back of regional capability,” she said.
Also participating in the livestream discussion was Laguna Bay Pastoral Company Chief Executive Officer, Tim McGavin, who touched on the impact on supply chains and consumer behaviour.
“We’ve seen massive disruptions to supply chains,” he said.
“It’s just been incredible the disruption generally (and) to business and assumptions that we’ve all made and taken for granted – having access to things and availability to things and access to markets, which overnight has just stopped.
“I actually think that might be a good thing for regional areas, particularly as we see change in not only consumer behaviour but also patterns in the supply chain, as the consumer probably wants to get closer to the producer and interact directly them with.
“During the GFC you had regulation on ‘too big to fail’ companies…and it’s highly likely you’ll have regulation on essential companies – pharmaceutical, a lot of food manufacturing, medical equipment and supplies and not only do I think we will do more of that domestically here which should be great for regional areas, we can capture some of that.
“I (also) think we will certainly see a shift towards decentralisation of processing. We’ve seen some big disruption in your super manufacturing processing plants particularly in the United States… and as part of global chains, procurement will be looking at ‘ok, how concentrated is my supply risk and how I can diversify this across many different regions’.”
Mr McGavin also touched on inventory from both a supplier and consumer side, saying inventory levels were likely to increase and therefore take pressure off the supply chain being perfect.
Other areas of potential change Mr McGavin touched on was the role of digital platforms in distribution, automation and movement towards zero touch food production.
Speaking on the difference of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the GFC, Mr McGavin said that the crisis was still playing out, “so we’re making assumptions. Its really consumption being hit but it’s also a supply shock.
“We’ve never had the mandated closure of whole sectors.
“The policy response for this (crisis) has been a massive humanitarian effort which has been just great to see from a social perspective. It’s been about printing money and lots of it to flow straight into households – mainly via wage support.
“That sort of monetary action we have not seen before ever at this scale and coordinated so it is going to be more inflationary eventually.
“In the GFC unemployment didn’t rise too much, whereas now we’ve got millions of people queuing up at Centrelink who never in their wildest dreams ever thought they would be doing that.
“This may change the psychology of consumption going forward and lead to more austerity and people chasing a lower cost of living. Regional areas may do well with that as people reassess what’s important.
“We’re building huge, huge debts from these deficits that’s being built on stuff that is not going to yield a return for future generations, so I think that’s going to be problematic.
“I think the unwinding of this is going to be very difficult from two perspectives. One, because this is inflationary it’s going to be more tweaky but also from a political perspective. You’ve had a lot of unskilled, unemployed have had their incomes doubled and you’ve got Labor saying they want that to stay so there’s going to be enormous political pressure and it is going to be very difficult to unwind that expansion in the public sector I think.”