Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure in this penultimate sitting to talk about the local City Heart Taskforce that I put together on the Gold Coast as my response to the coronavirus pandemic. The City Heart Taskforce is made up of leaders—the lions of industry on the Gold Coast. There are 14 key pillars across the City Heart Taskforce, which I brought together to make sure that we have a cross-industry think tank on the Gold Coast to steward the way forward for jobs, skills and industry. I have updated the House previously on the 2020 Reimagine Gold Coast forum, which I held at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre in August last year, and the following Reimagine 2.0 forum that I held at The Island in Surfers Paradise just last month.

I want to take the opportunity to thank the City Heart Taskforce executive members for their input and dedication to our city over the last 19 or so months. I'll start with Regional Development Australia. Estella Rodighiero has done so much work in the area of manufacturing. Manufacturing is worth about $7 billion to the Gold Coast and 14½ thousand direct jobs, so it's a very important area. Estella has done great work with Industry 4.0 and the emerging technology-led industries on the Gold Coast. There are also the two local chambers of commerce that span Moncrieff. They have two fantastic presidents, Ian Kennedy and Martin Hall. I thank them for their input and feedback on the JobKeeper 1 and JobKeeper 2 wage subsidies that helped so many—32,000—businesses across Moncrieff, 10½ thousand of whom were on JobKeeper for some period.

Rob Borbidge and Alfred Slogrove: thank you for your dedication on behalf of Study Gold Coast. Thank you for your fantastic dedication to the international education sector and for letting us know how things are on the ground so that we can move it forward here in Canberra. The Property Council, Matthew Schneider: 20 per cent of jobs on the Gold Coast are in construction. Destination Gold Coast: thank you to Paul Donovan and Patricia O'Callaghan for your work in tourism, which is very important to the Gold Coast—one in six jobs, in fact.

Thank you to the events sector—Adrienne Readings, Jan McCormick, John Howe—and the arts and culture sector, with Emeritus Professor Ned Pankhurst representing HOTA, the Home of the Arts. Chris Mills from our airport—what a great job. It's been difficult for the airport. Geoff Smith from Sports Gold Coast: thank you for the work that you do for women in sport, for the project which is moving forward in leaps and bounds on the Gold Coast as the home of women in sport. Thank you to Bernie Hogan, who heads up Queensland Hotels Association.

Thank you to the City Heart Taskforce members for your dedication.

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