Event

Queensland Jobs Growth Summit

On April 26th, 2016, we held the Queensland Jobs Summit in partnership with the University of Queensland School of Economics.

It was an extraordinarily successful stakeholder and public engagement event, bringing together key Government figures and heads of all Queensland’s main industry groups to emphasise that almost every industry in Queensland is a larger job creator than mining, by far. The heads of these industries relayed the message direct to Cabinet members and the public.

At the summit, The Australia Institute launched its report, Jobs Growth in Queensland: Trends and Prospects outlining recent employment trends and future prospects of Queensland’s industries and regions, and in the process thoroughly debunked the claim that jobs growth in Queensland would come from the mining industry.

The Queensland Jobs Growth Summit resulted in much positive media in Queensland, and culminated in the Courier Mail writing a positive editorial applauding both the Summit and the results of the report, and adopting the four pillars of future jobs growth in Queensland from the report as its own (replacing Campbell Newman’s mining and forestry based pillars).

Importantly, this work helped change the narrative not only within government, but with the public and the media. Both the report and the Jobs Summit event were crucial in helping to reframe ‘jobs and growth’ in Queensland ahead of the 2016 Federal Election, creating space in the debate, as well as economic credibility for the No New Coal Mines policy ask of the collaboration.