Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

one of the roles I particularly enjoy is that of Honorary Ambassador for the City of Brisbane and I am very honoured to have been reappointed by Lord Mayor Graham Quirk to this role. So I thought it only appropriate today to talk about a special event coming up on the Brisbane calendar, the 2015 Asia Pacific Cities Summit and Mayors' forum, to be held in Brisbane from 5 to 8 July. We have already seen Brisbane shine when it hosted the G20 last year and how well Brisbane as a city can host international events, but as Australia's new world city, Brisbane is so well placed for an event such as this, not only in social and cultural connections with other cities in our region but importantly in trade and businesses connections.

We know the importance of local government. Local government delivers infrastructure, local government delivers projects on the ground. While people in Canberra and my colleagues may think that we run the country in Canberra, the reality is that the people deliverying our policies on the ground are in local government and no-one does it better than the City of Brisbane.

The Asia Pacific Cities Summit was started in the late 1990s by then Lord Mayor Jim Soorley, an I do credit him with this—not with many other things, but this was a great initiative: lord mayors and mayors from cities in the Asia-Pacific region coming together to discuss challenges of cities going forward. So much challenges them—the big-issue items like planning and development, coping with increased population, coping with congestion and transport, but also those ones that are never going to go away, like water supply and garbage collection. As I keep telling my colleagues, it does not matter what issues you are talking about; if a garbage collection is missed, that is the most important issue of the day for people in our cities.

The mayors get together in this event that is held every two years, and every fourth year Brisbane as a city hosts it. I am delighted that it is going to be back in Brisbane this year. Other cities we have shared this event with include Seattle in the United States; Chongqing, one of Brisbane's sister cities in China; Incheon, in South Korea, which was an amazing event, because we went to look at the site where it was planned, and there was actually nothing there as it was all reclaimed land, so it was quite special; and, two years ago, Kaohsiung in Taiwan. This is a very special event, bringing together not just our elected officials and mayors from more than 100 cities—70 different mayors—but also councillors and people working as a team for their cities and looking at how we can partner to do things better and also to develop trade and business ties between cities.

We have seen many important initiatives come out of these events and also benefits not only for Brisbane but also for other cities in our region. This year's summit is going to look at shared learning and strategic partnerships and economic opportunities. It is going to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas and support the development of strategic and commercial partnerships between all levels of government as well as the private and public sector. As we know, it is much better for the private sector to deliver a lot of these projects and have the government facilitate with a hand up, not for the government to do it themselves.

The city summit also provides a platform that delivers long-term economic outcomes for cities and businesses seeking trade and investment opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region. As I said, this is an initiative of the Brisbane City Council, but of course we have other cities from Australia there as well. We sometimes forget the immense contribution made by local government to the function of good government in Australia. The infrastructure and services most often utilised by Australians—everything from roads and footpaths to waste collection services to libraries and child care—are disproportionately provided by local government. Having served as a councillor myself in the Brisbane City Council, I can say with authority that local government gets things done. That is the level of government that actually delivers, and that is where the greatest change can be effected for the greatest local benefit for communities.

Brisbane City Council sets the high standard for good local government. Professionally run, financially secure and ambitious, the council is well placed to showcase Brisbane as our new world city. I congratulate Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, Councillor Julian Simmonds, and the great Brisbane City Council team—the staff and everyone involved in this great event. I know it will be incredibly successful and will once again put Brisbane on the international stage.