Following on the success of last year’s Future Victoria event in partnership between the Victorian Chamber and the Herald Sun, this year’s edition was held at the Aviary at Crown Melbourne and heard from keynote speaker Lucinda Hartley and an expert panel about Melbourne and Victoria’s long-term prospects.

Ms Hartley is an urban futurist who has spent the past decade pioneering innovative solutions for improving cities and neighbourhoods, now adopted globally. She helped create the UN Sustainable Development Goals for cities (Goal 11),  has delivered more than 100 neighbourhood improvement projects across Australia and is co-founder of social and behavioural analytics enterprise, Neighbourlytics.  

Lucinda is an advocate for using human centered data and technology to improve local places. 

An example she provided was Point Cook’s town centre in Melbourne’s south-west, delivered by the Point Cook Pop Up Park in collaboration with CoDesign Studio. Using targeted visitor and community survey data to improve visitor amenity and attractiveness, including removing vehicle access, the area saw a 300 per cent increase in visitor spend, 66 per cent increase in personal connections, and retail tenant retention increase by two years.

From her learnings, Ms Hartley said your postcode is as likely to impact your life expectancy as genetics, meaning the future focus must be on the social wellbeing as it is the built environment.

“As we expand our populations around the world and face the housing crisis like we do very much Melbourne and Victoria, we’re faced with the challenge of creating places that are not only about shelter, but also that cater to our health and happiness needs,” she said.

Of particular importance are addressing and improving three key aspects:

• Walkability – being able to walk to up to 10 attractions, such as shops, restaurants or parks
• Fresh food availability – which is currently more available in inner cities than outer suburbs
• Social connection – loneliness and isolation has increased through Covid and is just as likely to “kill you as smoking and heart disease”.

“Fundamentally, we want to make sure that decisions that we make result in better human health and happiness, and if that’s not our goal then I wonder what is?” she said.

The event also heard from Hon. Colin Brooks MP, who was appointed Minister for Development Victoria, Precincts and Creative Industries in September 2023 under the new Allan Labor Government.

He highlighted the progress of the Metro Tunnel and reiterated his Government’s commitment to building the Suburban Rail Loop, “unlocking potential in and around our major transport connections in Melbourne’s inner middle suburbs”.

“The most successful of cities all have one thing in common. They’ve all invested in the transport infrastructure that encourages multiple employment and economic districts,” he said.

In a panel discussion, John Holland Group Chief Executive Officer Joe Barr expanded on his company’s role in building the future of Victoria’s infrastructure, including the Metro Tunnel, revealing trains were testing at full speed with a set operational date of September 2024.

Crown Melbourne Chief Executive Officer Mike Volkert also spoke shortly after Crown unveiled its own redevelopment masterplan comprising better connections to the Yarra River and new restaurants, shops and entertainment.

Joining Crown last year from Las Vegas, Mr Volkert lauded Melbourne’s sporting, culinary and events scene and the need for Crown’s transformation to be “world-class” to maintain the city’s reputation and standards.

Victorian Chamber Chief Executive Paul Guerra thanked all the speakers and emphasised the importance of the public-private partnership to “come together, collaborate on mapping out our future, and design the destiny of our State in a deliberate, focused and meaningful way”.

“We have the opportunity to shift our thinking. It’s time to move to a new phase, to capitalise on what we have, and progress further from that again,” Mr Guerra said.

The Victorian Chamber and Herald Sun collaborate on the Future Victoria series to present decision-makers and expert speakers to engage members of the Victorian business community as we look towards the future of our state.