The ACT's unique trans-border existence and economic and service inter-dependencies mean we need to plan in close collaboration with NSW, ACT Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher MLA has told a CEDA audience in Canberra.

"The ACT's new Business Development Strategy...explicitly recognises the relationships and economic flows that are a consequence of Canberra's regional role and the potential for thinking outside our borders," Ms Gallagher said.

"There's some real momentum and some genuine and productive dialogue happening on an array of cross-border issues.

"Keeping the channels of communication open is vital. But equally vital ...will be learning to speak with a regional voice, learning to articulate regional needs and regional concerns, and to pursue regional opportunities."

Ms Gallagher said the idea of the ACT-NSW Memorandum of Understanding signed last year with Barry O'Farrell "is to ensure that administrative borders don't loom so large in our policy thinking, letting us focus on other things".

On infrastructure Ms Gallagher said that important infrastructure for Canberra and the region included the Majura Parkway, the National Broadband Network rollout and Canberra Airport.

"We all know that good infrastructure is a driver of economic growth as well as quality of life," she said.

"A reliable road network is possibly the single greatest piece of infrastructure that can unite or divide the people of a region.

"A collective and collegiate approach to a safe and reliable road network can deliver us better road infrastructure...and that will mean greater productivity, greater amenity, less congestion and a lower death and injury toll."

Ms Gallagher said the Canberra Airport is another critical piece of infrastructure and stressed the "regional importance of allowing the airport to fulfil its destiny - and therefore the importance of limiting residential development under existing or future flight paths".

Population futures - analysing the economic and social impacts

• Examining the population distribution and impact on one of Australia's most important regional economic zones

Australian National University, Professor of Public Policy in the Crawford School, Professor Glenn Withers AO set the scene by highlighting some population statistics for Australia:

• A one per cent population growth will add $600 billion more to Australia's GDP by 2051;
• A one per cent increase in total output increases the rate of innovation by 0.6 per cent; and
• Increasing city size by one million people adds four per cent to productivity.

Professor Withers also spoke of the recent proposals from CEDA's research publication A Great Australia: population policies and governance released in March 2012, including:

• Introduction of an Australian Population Council which should include research capacity, projections, participation, skills and infrastructure co-ordination and immigration settings; and
• A Future Generations Report to succeed the Intergenerational Report and emphasise investment in human capital, network capital and innovation.

Allen Consulting Group, Director, Kerry Barwise shared a new web-based application which provides full demographic models of Australia's population, down to a regional level.

The application also provides real-time projections for population growth for specific sectors, such as demand for housing, demand for healthcare and demand for educational institutions.

Infrastructure planning

• Encouraging economic activity, delivering best practice and responding to the needs of business and communities

University of Wollongong, SMART Infrastructure Facility, Chief Executive Officer, Garry Bowditch, said we need to bust the silos and think about infrastructure as a system.

"(We) depend on that (system) in order to facilitate our daily lives, yet when it comes to the procurement and the planning of our society we take the infrastructure system for granted. And that in itself is a fundamental problem," he said.

"In fact we use the term integrated almost as a throwaway line, and that is an area where we need to change"

Mr Bowditch said integrated infrastructure planning "would be nice, but we're nowhere near it."

He identified areas of improvement to enable effective and collaborative infrastructure planning including:

• Develop Intellectual frameworks and language to actually start studying the system and its interrelationship;
• Articulate the problem and ask the right questions - instead of being presented with solutions that are in search of a problem;
• Address the community's lack of consciousness of the infrastructure system; and
• Have honesty and integrity about growth, density, winners and losers.

"Canberra Airport is an example of what's wrong with the rest of the system, because it has been so spectacularly successful and I would argue that the reason it's been so spectacularly successful is because the impediments to the land use planning everywhere else had been so abysmally bad," he said.

Canberra Airport, Managing Director, Stephen Byron, said Canberra Airport is already servicing the overflow from Sydney Airport and would continue to do so into the future.

Canberra Airport is NSW's only 24/7 airport and we're already seeing 'hubbing' for example from Hobart to Sydney, he said.

Sydney is one of the smallest major airports in Australia and in the future we will see 747 freighters in Canberra, he said.

Mr Byron said he has already been approached by companies wanting to send 747 freighters to Canberra and had strong interest from the live animal export industry as well as looking at international services to New Zealand.

In March 2013, we will deliver a brand new airport - not just infrastructure capability, but also the first impression people get when they arrive; as a modern, progressive place where they are welcome to do business, he said.

On High Speed Rail (HSR), Mr Byron said: "It's not just about building a train, but an economic corridor."

HSR could connect Sydney and Canberra in 58 minutes and would develop the aviation industry, he said.

"We could play a great role in assisting with the overflow," he said.

If it has taken 15 years to deliver international services, in another 15 we could deliver HSR, giving plenty of time for the federal budget to get itself into better shape and for the second Sydney airport debate to play itself out, he said.

Mr Byron predicted that the proposed second Sydney Airport in Wilton would fall over and Canberra Airport would be the only option to deal with the increasing overflow from Sydney.

AECOM, Director of Economics, Dr David Adams told the audience that while we're good at planning we are let down in the implementation of infrastructure.

"We need reform of infrastructure decision making," he said.

Canberra airport is a good example of how to get privately funded investment in serious transport infrastructure, he said.

"We need some serious microeconomic reform of land transport" to lift productivity, he said.

Dr Adams said the capital component is dragging down productivity not labour.

We need to look at the productivity of land use, not just of congestion -current methods of transport infrastructure planning and appraisal do not consider the productivity of land use, he said.

Innovation and investment

• Driving competitiveness and dynamic business sectors

CSIRO, Executive Manager - Precincts and Innovation Systems, Dr David Ireland said: "Australia has some really interesting strength in the innovation space, but it's also got some really complex challenges."

"We produce over three per cent of the world's (academic) papers, which is pretty impressive given we're got only .3 of the world's population," Dr Ireland said.

"The most limiting characteristic on the Australian innovation system is that we are so focussed on domestic competition...what we need to do is to switch that to become domestically collaborative, to become internationally competitive."

"Innovation precincts might be one of the answers to improving how we innovate and ensure we remain globally competitive within the global innovation system.

"It's about attracting the best people, collaborations and investments, really trying to build dynamic and connected systems that are capable of responding to some of those complex challenges that we're being faced with."

On a precinct in Canberra Dr Ireland said that Canberra has some really strong capabilities, including universities, development agencies, government, Cooperative Research Centres and Research Development Corporations.

"We're not trying to grow something out of nothing. It's really just taking what is already there, having the systems and processes and encouraging a culture," he said.

Ms Catherine Caruana-McManus said we only have to see globally what happens when you have stress points in major cities; it awakens the regional discussion about a better way to achieve the same goals.

We need a shifting in mindset to continue to support the expanding footprint of cities, she said.

"Smarter regional hubs and precincts that are better connected physically and digitally by the cities and regions will thrive," she said.

"Essentially it's the ability of cities and regions to tap into our educated, innovative and mobile workforce in Australia.

"We believe very strongly the connectivity between Canberra, Wollongong and Sydney, makes the opportunity for regional service delivery, from a knowledge services economy perspective, very attractive.

"The outlook for the south east region in NSW is very positive. The opportunity exists to be a trail blazer and leap frog into the new age through innovation."

IBM Australia, Smarter Cities & Planet Executive, Catherine Caruana-McManus, said: "Unprecedented urbanisation is both an emblem of economic and societal progress, but it's also places huge strain on our cities infrastructure."

We need to break down the silos, we can only move forward if we have a good understanding of what the problem is, she said.

"I'm proposing that regions and hubs are the future and in fact they are a significant part of the solution."

Ms Caruana-McManus said we only have to see globally what happens when you have stress points in major cities; it awakens the regional discussion about a better way to achieve the same goals.

We need a shifting in mindset to continue to support the expanding footprint of cities, she said.

"Smarter regional hubs and precincts that are better connected physically and digitally by the cities and regions will thrive," she said.

"Essentially it's the ability of cities and regions to tap into our educated, innovative and mobile workforce in Australia.

"We believe very strongly the connectivity between Canberra, Wollongong and Sydney, makes the opportunity for regional service delivery, from a knowledge services economy perspective, very attractive.

"The outlook for the south east region in NSW is very positive. The opportunity exists to be a trail blazer and leap frog into the new age through innovation."

NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Industry and Innovation Policy, Kerry Doyle, Executive Director said a focus of the NSW 2021 State plan is about making NSW the first place in Australia to do business - and it shouldn't be hard to do.

"It is the gateway to the country. If Sydney works, Australia can work, NSW can work," she said.

The weakness is that "we sit in Sydney and we forget what we're connected to," she said.

"The bureaucracy needs to shift its thinking spatially and to see where Sydney is located in the argument not as the argument," she said.

Ms Doyle said there has been a change of approach and "we're very much in the back seat, we are the conduit to information, we're not the information makers."

The action plan in development, with a draft scheduled for release towards the end of June, looks at:

• The manufacturing sector
• Digital economy
• International education and research
• Professional services
• Visitor economy - looking at the various reasons why people go to NSW and how we provide infrastructure (education, tourism and business)

Key themes emerging from the taskforces reporting include:

• Importance of developing intellectual capital for long-term competitiveness
• The need to reduce business costs
• The need for better education outputs aligned with industry needs
• Better process and planning systems
• Raise global profile of NSW to do business

Westpac Institutional Bank, Director, Andrew Buttsworth provided a thoughtful economic outlook and reasoning for the "pretty weak and fragile consumer confidence".

Using The National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS)  as an example of  good collaboration between government and the private sector, Mr Buttsworth talked of the importance of "setting up conditions under which in (and) which the private sector are prepared to put money in".