Sheryl Anderson

Hello. I'm going to be talking about the process of developing a strategy for cultural development for this region. South-east Queensland is a distinctive and unique region. It's one of the fastest growing regions in Australia facing continual challenges as a result of this growth. Two-thirds of the state's population live here and the region is a gateway or centrepoint, from an economic point of view, for the rest of Queensland. It is also well placed as a gateway to South-East Asia. South-east Queensland's climate and biodiversity ensures that three out of the state's five major holiday destinations are actually in this region, the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

The region extends from the sea to the mountains and includes both urban and rural development. This is a taste of jargon, you must remember this. The South-East Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils, or SEQROC, comprises 17 local government areas, plus the Brisbane City Council. The 17, excluding Brisbane, are grouped into subregions. For example, the seven northern councils are known as NORSROC. Within the south-east Queensland region there are also communities of interest which cross local government boundaries, for example indigenous groups or textile artists, performers.

In 1995 local government cultural development and community art workers from south-east Queensland met to network, to share knowledge and skills, to update current projects, to support each other professionally and to raise issues pertinent to their positions in local government. Officers who may not have been dedicated cultural officers, but who also had cultural development as part of their responsibilities, including responsibility for administering RADF, which is the Regional Arts Development Fund, were also invited to attend the regular meetings as well as representation from the Arts Office of Queensland, the Local Government Association of Queensland and the Queensland Community Arts Network.

As well as discussing exciting cultural development projects in their area or how the cultural map was going or how the development of the local cultural policy was going, there were two significant issues raised. The first was the need to advocate for community cultural development to senior officers within council as well as to elected representatives in order to place the agenda of cultural development more securely in the strategic and corporate planning processes. The second was the need to initiate discussions regarding ways to advance a regional planning process via the existing planning processes of south-east Queensland.

In comparison to other regions of Queensland the south-east has a significant arts and cultural infrastructure that is funded by both state and local governments. For the investment of all governments in the region to be maximised, the development of cultural infrastructures cannot take place in isolation from other regional planning processes.

The south-east Queensland local government officers' network, through the leadership of the arts office, decided to coordinate a regional cultural summit aiming to showcase existing work to councillors and to develop a cohesive regional framework for cultural development. A steering committee was formed with representatives from The Arts Office, the LGAQ, which is the Local Government Association Queensland, the Brisbane City Council and representative officers from north, south and west councils to develop the concept of the summit and to keep it focused on the practical and the achievable. It was a hard task.

The summit aimed to bring together key local government, cultural industry and community representatives to advance practical issues and policy for cultural development in south-east Queensland. This was to identify the major issues and opportunities that impact on arts and cultural development in the area and to identify and document both the common and the diverging issues and opportunities and their impact on the arts and cultural sector, the local government cultural industry and community representatives to advance practical issues and policy for cultural development in south-east Queensland. This was to identify the major issues and opportunities that impact on arts and cultural development in the area and to identify and document both the common and the diverging issues and opportunities and their impact on the arts and cultural sector.

The target audience was councillors within SEQROC, senior council staff in south-east Queensland, cultural, economic and community development officers, cultural industry bodies, organisations, advocacy groups and agencies, Commonwealth and state politicians and key individual practitioners and companies.

The idea of a summit was enthusiastically received by local councils in the region. It allowed councils to come together to see the common elements of their own cultural development programs by promoting their own regional best practice examples and was also seen in the context of the emerging strategic role for local government in cultural development which has been traditionally done through facility development and often in an ad hoc method.

For LGAQ the notion of developing a strategy for south-east Queensland is part of the Queensland local government cultural development strategy from revealing the heart of our communities to creating a cultural climate, innovation in enterprising councils, to the development of regional coordination of strategies. The summit was co-hosted by The Arts Office and the LGAQ, the summit coordinator, Jill Jordan, was employed within the LGAQ. The Brisbane City Council provided the City Hall as the summit venue while another 12 councils dipped into their pockets to help with much needed financial support.

On August 15 a capacity crowd of 240 participants from local and state government, cultural industry and the community was treated to some excellent food for thought from quality keynote speakers. Professor Peter Spirit, Director of the National Centre for Australia Studies at Monash University talked of the role of local government in cultural development in south-east Queensland. His talk, Landscape and Locality, Cultural Dilemmas for South-East Queensland, really managed to set out the issues facing the region with its enormous growth.

Professor Mary Kalansis, head of the Education Department at James Cook University, produced some strong reactions with her provocative paper on cultural diversity. Anne Dunn, the CEO within the City of Port Phillip, stirred hearts with her paper on the role of councils in producing livable places. Associate Professor of Public Administration from Griffith University, John Whanna, talked cogently about the changing role of government in today's world.

Participants then chose workshop options from the broad range available and were treated to short presentations on the topic before breaking into small groups to discuss the topics and the issues that arose. Topics that were covered were creative local communities, cultural industry development, tourism, catering to the needs of the community, cultural planning, strategic development, place-making and identity, cultural infrastructure and culture and community development.

The small groups were asked, first to get the ball rolling, "What is your name and where do you come from? What is the most interesting thing in the field of cultural development in which your organisation is involved and who are your partners in this work?" Then, which was what we were really interested in, "What opportunities, including potential partnerships do you see for regional cultural planning and what are the issues that need to be addressed?"

In the plenary session at the end of the day some of the participants were chosen to represent each sector at a forum to be held in early December. The representatives consisted of local government councillors and officers, state government planning, tourism and industry development delegates, representatives from statutory authorities, youth representatives, delegates from indigenous and ethnic organisations and the cultural industry and community artists.

They are all contributing to the development of a cultural development framework for this region. This is being accomplished through the steering committee and the coordinator. There were nine pages of issues raised at the summit. These were collated and developed into a framework document which was circulated for forum participants. We've just received back those comments. They have been collated and a second draft of the document has just been sent out and we actually have available those documents if people are interested.

A third document will be sent and forum participants will bring them in December when we will ask people to develop specific actions and strategies from the draft framework. Participants will be asked to brainstorm strategies or actions for each principle of the framework and to prioritise these actions. The final product will be presented to the regional coordination committee of South-East Queensland 2001 and it is hoped that in following this process we can ensure the inclusion of local government and community aspirations into the regional planning process. This is a very dry process it's very long, convoluted, but it has to be that way so that people can actually have a chance to say what they think is important in developing this sort of framework.

The SEQ 2001 project is the overall planning process for the south-east Queensland region. The process works on principles of integrated planning and consultative development. Its principles ensure that planning solutions are not imposed on regions but seek the contributions of participating councils and organisations in the development of complimentary policy and planning strategies.

One issue which was raised at the summit was, What is the role that government plays in cultural development? According to Anne Dunn in her speech at the summit, in the Commonwealth arena the money is focused primarily towards artists and national institutions. In state government arenas the funding is focused toward artists and state institutions. In Queensland there is a partnership between local governments and the state government through the Regional Arts Development Fund. RADF operates in partnership with local government. The program promotes professional development in the employment of artists in regional Queensland and supports locally determined arts and cultural development opportunities by providing one-off, short-term project-based financial assistance to groups and individuals.

Some of the objectives for the framework so far are to ensure that cultural implications provide a baseline for strategic planning processes; to develop collaborative partnerships with all levels of government, the private sector and the community; to facilitate opportunities for people, groups and associations and the industry sector to reach their full potential; to maintain and enhance the vibrance and diversity of communities and to ensure that the concentration and range of creativity in the region is identified and to ensure that our regional competitive advantages are maximised.

There are 10 principles, which I won't read out to you. The south-east Queensland summit forum and the ensuing regional framework for cultural development are based on the principle of collaborative planning to make sure that regional activities and needs are addressed. It has been an important process, it has come out of local government cultural development workers seeing the need for this sort of planning process to happen and it has also come out of the planning processes that have been put in place through the arts office and through the South-east Queensland 2001 project.

The strategies themselves have not been developed. Hopefully that will happen - well, that will happen at the forum on December 3. Also at the Queensland Community Arts Network seminar there will be a workshop where people will be able to participate in brainstorming strategies for each principle. Thank you.