With more than 21 years' experience at the Daily, Erle Levey is dedicated to presenting a fair and accurate overview of the Sunshine Coast property market. Having been through the busts and the booms, he has the benefit of hindsight - and an unshakeable belief in the future of the region.

Smart State starts at grassroots level

June 14 | Erle Levey

There is a lot to like about the Sunshine Coast … but also some things to be concerned about.

At the Understanding Contemporary Property development course at University of Sunshine Coast last week, Marcus Spiller of SGS Research looked at what makes the economy tick and asked what the drivers are.

“We talk about the knowledge-based economy but our skills level is below that of many other regions,’’ Mr Spiller said.

“The Sunshine Coast has an economy half that of Tasmania, so it’s a significant part of the national fabric.

"The gross regional product (GRP) in 2007 was about $7billion … up from $5.6billion in 2001 with an annual growth rate of 4.5%.

"Not exactly a tiger economy of 9-10% like China, India or Vietnam but for a healthy economy it is seen as very good.

"Even if it is not as much as the rest of Queensland or other parts of Australia with a strong resource growth.’’

Strong migration in itself creates a lot of growth – construction and business services, education, health.

Yet that will not sustain the region indefinitely.

The Sunshine Coast needs to export goods and services, not import them.

Tourism is the key at the moment, together with service industries, retail and education.

The structure of the economy is diversifying – slowly.

Construction and government services have grown mainly because the region has passed through some population number thresholds.

Knowledge based industries (KBIs) are the new buzzword with a significant number of jobs being created in education and that is growing, just to keep pace with the increase in population.

“Whether you are running a milk bar or a multi-national company, you have to be smart to survive,’’ Mr Spiller warned.

He said the Sunshine Coast presents a complex and interesting picture.

In some cases there are reasons to be optimistic and in others – anxiety.

It is growing faster than most areas in the state but the unbundling of services is a concern.

What we are seeing is the outsourcing of financial and business services when major institutions used to do them as part of their day-to-day running of business.

The strongest growth is advanced business service sector – consultants, legal, design etc … people who are paid to think.

Developers are also in a good position.

You could just sit back and let the population wave carry you through, Mr Spiller said.

Tourism is the stalwart of the economy and has a bright future … as long as we look after the environment and remain a destination; a place people want to continue to come to.

Recent Comments

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Posted by Excalibur from Doonan

on 14 June, 2008 at 5:10 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

The Sunshine Coast economy is very much driven by a continuing influx of people, both new residents and tourists. Most of our major industries, including retail, rely on this. We do not actually produce much in the way of products to sell to the rest of the world, and virtually no "value added" products.

This is the crux of our problem here. Business on the Coast is deperate to continue economic growth based on a continued influx of new people and increasing tourist numbers. But the local community is saying to them that we may be reaching the point in the not-too-distant future when this continued flood of new people has to slow down and we need to find other ways of making a living here.

We can all sit back and rub our hands saying that these new people are bringing in lots of new money, but I would suggest that this may end up being a very short sighted view. The question only remains - how short sighted are we talking about. When will the crunch come. We already have the problem that we don't have enough jobs for all the new migrants, apart from in the construction industry, effectively building housing for themselves.

The rest of QLD at least has the mining boom to help drive the economy along. But, again...for how long. What ever did happen to those Smart State initiatives?

Posted by shatton from Great_Height

on 14 June, 2008 at 8:14 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Why don't we all just give up the fight to save the Coast and just join the gravy train. There is lots of money to be made out of these migrants and we are obviously never going to win the battle against the development industry and the State Government anyway.

Just get on board and enjoy the ride. We can always go and live somewhere else when the Coast is ruined.