Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis Sunshine Coast

This report is an output of an Australian Research Council Linkage project (LP160101724) led by Queensland University of Technology in partnership with the University of Newcastle, Arts Queensland, Create NSW, Creative Victoria, Arts South Australia and the WA Department of Culture and the Arts.

Strategic summary The Sunshine Coast (unless otherwise specified, Sunshine Coast refers to the region which includes both Sunshine Coast and Noosa council areas) is a classic regional hotspot. In many respects, the Sunshine Coast has assets that make it the “Goldilocks” of Queensland hotspots: “the agility of the region and our collaborative nature is facilitated by the fact that we're not too big, not too small - 330,000 people” (Paddenburg, 2019); “We are in that perfect little bubble of just right of about everything” (Erbacher 2019).

The Sunshine Coast has one of the fastest-growing economies in Australia. Its population is booming and its local governments are working together to establish world-class communications, transport and health infrastructure, while maintaining the integrity of the region’s much-lauded environment and lifestyle. As a result, the Sunshine Coast Council is regarded as a pioneer on smart city initiatives, while Noosa Shire Council has built a reputation for prioritising sustainable development.

The region’s creative economy is growing at a faster rate that of the rest of the economy—in terms of job growth, earnings, incomes and business registrations. These gains, however, are not spread uniformly. Creative Services (that is, the advertising and marketing, architecture and design, and software and digital content sectors) are flourishing, while Cultural Production (music and performing arts, publishing and visual arts) is variable, with visual and performing arts growing while film, television and radio and publishing have low or no growth.

The spirit of entrepreneurialism amongst many creatives in the Sunshine Coast was similar to what we witnessed in other hotspots: a spirit of not necessarily relying on institutions, seeking out alternative income sources, and leveraging networks. How public agencies can better harness that energy and entrepreneurialism could be a focus for ongoing strategy. There does seem to be a lower level of arts and culture funding going into the Sunshine Coast from governments than its population base and cultural and creative energy might suggest. Federal and state arts funding programs are under-delivering to the Sunshine Coast.

There is a well-established and highly successful Innovation and Entrepreneurship framework that should stand as a model for other regions. Given the range of cultural and creative enterprise

1 Version 21 October 2019 development occurring often outside this system, there is further opportunity to incorporate such activity into the system.

Population growth and major infrastructure development on the Sunshine Coast has driven investment and business growth. Given this, there could be greater focus on leveraging these fundamental growth assets to promote the role of cultural and creative activity in social and economic development.

The Sunshine Coast region is home to a full spectrum of cultural and creative activity, ranging from fully-publicly-funded and council-managed galleries and festivals through to fully commercial media companies, architects and a growing cohort of software developers and designers. Between those ends of the spectrum, hybrid models are emerging. Given this range, there may be a need for greater clarity around the rationale for support and the outcomes expected for fully publicly-funded arts and culture.

Tourism, of course, is one of the biggest industries in the region and one that contributes centrally to its identity. But there seemed to be an underdeveloped sense of its potential to open opportunities for cultural and creative activity, and vice versa. Cairns and the Gold Coast have shown that Indigenous cultural attractions, for example, are proven tourism assets. The Central West is fully committed to cultural infrastructure as a crucial part of the tourism offer. There is a significant opportunity for the Sunshine Coast’s potential in cultural tourism to be further developed.

Given the ever-increasing public, private and philanthropic resources going into health, there is an opportunity for greater strategy and planning based on the well evidenced role that cultural and creative inputs can make into health and wellbeing.

Sunshine Coast officials and community leaders are right to extoll the “just-right” (“Goldilocks”) nature of their region in terms of its range of assets. We trust that this report may contribute to further success in strategy and planning for the development of cultural and creative activity.

We structure this report around three strategic themes: the interrelationships within the sub sectors of the creative industries; the relationship of cultural and creative activity to the wider economy; and comparative perspectives on hotspots.

2 Version 21 October 2019 Contents Strategic summary ...... 1

Acknowledgements ...... 4

Background and context ...... 5

Strategic theme 1 Interrelationships across the sub sectors of the creative industries ...... 11

Strategic theme 2: The relationship of cultural and creative activity to the wider economy ...... 17

Strategic theme 3: Comparative perspectives on hotspots ...... 25

References ...... 27

Appendix A.1 Creative employment by place of work, Noosa and Sunshine Coast, 2016 ...... 29

Appendix A.2 Total earnings by place of work, Noosa and Sunshine Coast, 2016 ...... 30

Appendix A.3 Total earnings by place of work, Noosa and Sunshine Coast, 2016 ...... 31

Appendix B Creative industry employment, Noosa and Sunshine Coast, 2016 ...... 32

Appendix C.1 Creative industry employment by ANZSIC4 category, Queensland hotspots ...... 33

Appendix C.1 Creative industry employment by ANZSCO category, Queensland hotspots ...... 34

3 Version 21 October 2019 Acknowledgements The research team gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following people and organisations for providing the information and insights that made this report possible: Peter Allen, musician Michael Brennan, Noosa Regional Gallery Calli Burnett, photographer Philippe Ceulen, Creative Enterprise Australia Sam Coward, HOT91.1 and XS Entertainment Claudia Di Blasi, Sunshine Coast Council Michael Doneman, Edgeware Creative Entrepreneurship Anthony Dow, Noosa Shire Council Kate Edmiston, Creative Alliance Adam Erbacher, Film Tree Phil Graham, University of the Sunshine Coast Nicole Jordan, Creative Enterprise Australia Glenda Johnson, Arts Queensland Anne Lawrence, Sunshine Coast Council Santiago Maldonado, Latitude Zero Alison Mooney, Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre (at the time of interview) Mark Paddenburg, Sunshine Coast Innovation Centre Cara Robinson, musician Alicia Sharples, Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre Phil Smith, Creative Arts Alliance, architect Zohar Spatz, Horizon Festival Coby Sullivan, #SCRIPT Roger Todd, architect Santiago Maldonado, Latitude Zero Simon Van Der Spoel, Seven Network John Waldron, Blue Sky View and Makeway Lab

4 Version 21 October 2019 Background and context

Noosa Shire—different by nature (Noosa Shire Council, 2018a).

Australia’s most sustainable region - Healthy, Smart, Creative is Sunshine Coast Council’s corporate vision for the region (Sunshine Coast Council, 2018a, p. 12).

The Noosa Shire and Sunshine Coast Councils were established as separate local governments on 1 January 2014, following the 2008 amalgamation of the Caloundra, Maroochy and Noosa councils and subsequent campaigning by Noosa residents for independence. Although the economies of the two local government areas are closely intertwined, they have distinct place identities that reflect their heritage, the people who live there and their economic development. The Sunshine Coast is represented in promotional and other material as being family-friendly and lifestyle-oriented locale, with a vibrant beach culture and dynamic music scene—and an increasingly strong and growing economy. Noosa, on the other hand, is a premium tourism destination with strict development controls that prioritises its environmental and built heritage. Both local government areas are well- known for their cultural and music festivals and both have an interest in nurturing their creative industries, in recognition of their role in attracting and retaining the skilled and talented individuals that they anticipate will be important for the future of their respective economies. Population The populations of Noosa and the Sunshine Coast are vastly different in size and in the rates at which they are growing. At more than 300,000, the Sunshine Coast’s population is more than 40 times the size of that of Noosa and is growing at nearly twice the rate (Appendix A). The Sunshine Coast Council expects its population to reach 500,000 within 20 years (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016; Sunshine Coast Council, 2018a).

Despite their size differences, the demographic profiles of the two council areas are very similar. For example, with an average age of 45 and 42 years respectively, their residents are both older than the average Queenslander at 38 years, and the proportions of people with school, trade and university qualifications, and people with Indigenous heritage are almost identical. In both council areas young people experience high unemployment relative to the rest of the population (Figure 1), even though significant numbers leave in their 20s for study and work (Figure 2). The somewhat higher youth unemployment rate in the Sunshine Coast compared with the higher youth unemployment ratio in Noosa points to a slightly greater proportion of young people in Noosa studying or in training while not working at the time of the last census (Appendix A).

5 Version 21 October 2019 Figure 1 Demographic profile, Noosa and Sunshine Coast local government areas

Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)

People with creative qualifications on the Sunshine Coast are younger. The proportion of people with creative qualifications, however, does differ across the two local council areas, reflecting the changing economic dynamics of the Sunshine Coast, and the increasing cost of living in Noosa. Noosa has higher proportions of people with creative qualifications in the 40-49 to 60-69 age groups, making it a mini-Byron Bay, while the Sunshine Coast, with its flourishing economic opportunities, has higher proportions in the 20-29 and 30-39 year age groups (Figure 3).

Figure 2 Population by age, 2016 Figure 3 Proportion of population with creative qualifications by age, 2016

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016) Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)

Geography Three parallel strips define the Sunshine Coast. Located immediately to the north of Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast extends from a developed and urban coastline with popular tourist beaches to the hinterland of the Blackall Range and its country towns, rainforest and farming land. Entrepreneurship and innovation coach and creative broker Michael Doneman (2019) described how the region’s spatial geography has determined its socioeconomics, with a dense urban footprint on the coast, a chain of more affordable redevelopment along the railway line (the “railway towns”),

6 Version 21 October 2019 and communities dotted through the hinterland. These three vertical strips are visible on the Queensland government’s map of key resources in South-East Queensland (Figure 4). The coastal strip is more expensive, with affordability under pressure from tourism, retirees and new estates, while the hinterland has seen relatively little development. Following a period of economic downturn with the collapse of old industries, the railway towns are now attracting core creative practitioners as they are being reshaped for more affordable living and locations for new forms of enterprise.

The Sunshine Coast is also “a village of villages,” with towns maintaining a strong sense of their own identity: “the Sunshine Coast is hyperlocal, with 18 villages with completely different cultures” (P. Graham, 2019). Radio announcer Sam Coward said locals “don’t cross the river” and will not travel far for entertainment, “which is handy if you're wanting to tour a little production because you know you're not going to be pinching audiences” (Coward, 2019). Claudia Di Blasi from the Sunshine Coast Council said that the council arts plan deals with this by focussing on the creation of cultural hubs, providing experiences in the places people live (Di Blasi, 2019).

But the geography makes fashioning a vision that embraces the whole region harder. Critical cultural infrastructure is underdeveloped and spatially dispersed, although there are definite plans for signature developments (new gallery and artists’ working spaces) in Caloundra and cultural activation of spaces in the new Maroochydore CBD.

The proximity of Brisbane has little pull for locals. Despite its proximity, Brisbane doesn’t have a big pull for people living on the Sunshine Coast, with unreliable rail connections and an inadequate highway diluting the gravitational pull of the state capital. According to Claudia Di Blasi (2019) , most would only commute for significant reasons—and this is supported by 2016 census data that shows that 82.7 per cent of employed people resident in the region work there.

However, there is a perception on the Sunshine Coast that the region is too close to Brisbane to justify large-scale expenditure in arts and cultural infrastructure such as performing arts complexes because potential patrons travel to Brisbane for those experiences. Remote regions such as Cairns, of course, don’t have this “problem”, and have invested strongly in cultural infrastructure, but more pertinently the Gold Coast, which is closer to Brisbane, and has better road and rail connectivity, has invested strongly in cultural infrastructure. Sunshine Coast Council is challenging this perception with plans to build a new gallery in Caloundra and to further develop the Horizon Festival.

7 Version 21 October 2019 Figure 4 Key resource areas on the Sunshine Coast

Source: DILGP (2017)

Economy The Noosa and the Sunshine Coast economy generates more than six per cent of Queensland’s gross regional product and is growing strongly, by as much as five per cent per annum (Table 1). The Sunshine Coast Council is focussed on cultivating economic growth and driving growth in employment—particularly for young people who might have been able to study locally but had to leave to find work (Di Blasi, 2019). At his 2018 State of the Region Address, Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson highlighted the gains being made as the Sunshine Coast economy grew—household incomes, employment, building approvals and tourism had all increased, while the health of the local population was among the best in the state (Sawyer, 2018). Growth has been an impetus for business on the Sunshine Coast, with the new opportunities flowing from population growth and infrastructure development “resetting the social order” and “activating” the city (Salt, 2017).

Table 1 Economic indicator summary, Queensland creative hotspot study areas, 2016 unless otherwise indicated Population GRP, 2017-28 Total Total employed businesses Noosa Measure 52,147 $2,819m 22,011 22,422 Avg annual growth 1.3% 3.0% 1.5% 0.5% % of state 1.1% 0.9% 1.0% 1.6% Sunshine Measure 294,365 $15,744m 129,634 99,973 Coast Avg annual growth 2.5% 5.0% 2.6% 1.7% % of state 6.3% 5.2% 6.1% 7.1% Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018), .id (2018), .id (2019 ) Regional Australia Institute (2014)

The largest industry in the Sunshine Coast is health care and social assistance, in terms both of people employed and value added, followed by construction, retail, and education and training, reflecting its status as a growing community (Figure 5). The Sunshine Coast is also a popular tourism destination, with tourism ranking as its fourth-largest industry in terms of value add (Figure 11).

In comparison, sustainability is a focus for Noosa Shire and ensuring that growth does not adversely impact its environment is a priority. Economic development is considered hand-in-hand

8 Version 21 October 2019 with environmental protection, with the prevailing attitude being to avoid growth at any cost. According to Noosa Shire Council’s Economic Development Manager Anthony Dow (2019): “I think it's important to consider the position of Noosa, which is obviously the environmental credentials and Noosa attracts a certain interest and population and community spirit. So economic development within that context is really starting to mature in Noosa and evolve”.

Tourism is by far Noosa’s most significant business sector, contributing 11.6 per cent of its total value add and 15.3 per cent of its employment. Its top two industries in terms of employment are accommodation and food and retail trade, while construction is its largest in terms of value add, reflecting demand by local residents as well as travellers for the Noosa lifestyle (Appendices A and B).

Figure 5 Economic indicators by ANZSIC division, Noosa and Sunshine Coast

Note: An interactive version of this figure for each LGA is available at http://research.qut.edu.au/creativehotspots Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), Australian Business Register (2019), .id (2019 )

Creative economy The creative economy is growing—and it is growing faster than the rest of the economy. In both Noosa and the Sunshine Coast, growth in all creative economy measures—employment, earnings, mean incomes and active business registrations— was stronger than the economy as a whole. For example, between the census years of 2011 and 2016, employment in creative roles increased by an annual average of 4.3 per cent, while total employment increased by 4.2 (Appendix A).

Growth in the creative economy is not distributed uniformly, with gains most apparent in architecture and design, software and digital content and music and performing arts. Between the census years of 2011 and 2016, employment of architecture and design specialists grew by an annual average of 6.1 per cent, the software and digital content specialists by 7.6 per cent and performing arts specialists by 13.3 per cent, well above average employment growth at 4.2 per cent. Other areas of strong growth included specialists embedded in other industries: software and digital content workers at 9.0 per cent, advertising and marketing workers at 5.6 per cent and musicians and performers at 5.9 per cent. Growth in employment in other creative industry sectors was generally well below average. The trend in business registrations is similar, although there is no

9 Version 21 October 2019 corresponding growth in visual and performing arts, suggesting that performers are finding employment within existing organisations.

Visual and performing arts businesses and architecture and design businesses are less likely and software and digital content businesses are more likely to be registered for GST that other creative businesses. That is, visual and performing arts and architecture and design businesses are less likely to earn sales above the GST registration threshold of $75,000 per year (Figure 6). These are also the industries and occupations that earn the lowest mean incomes (Appendix A).

Figure 6 Employment, total earnings and mean income compared with business registrations, 2011 to 2016, Sunshine Coast and Noosa

Note: An interactive version of this figure is available at http://research.qut.edu.au/creativehotspots Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), Australian Business Register (2019)

Geographically, the region’s creative industries are concentrated along the three north-south strips of development, as can be seen impressionistically by mapping census employment data (Appendix B). The coastal strip, with the Maroochydore CBD is home to the advertising and marketing, and film, TV and radio industries. The architecture and design and software and digital content industries have similar footprints, with a presence in the Noosa hinterland, Peregian and Maroochydore. People working in the cultural production industries are more likely to be located away from the coast. Those working in the publishing industry are concentrated in the Eumundi/Yandina area, while those in visual and performing arts are generally located in the hinterland. While Noosa was a magnet for artists and cultural practitioners aligned with the environmental and social movements of the 1980s and 1990s (Noosa Shire Council, 2018b), its increasing attractiveness as a tourism destination has pushed up property prices, forcing many practitioners into the hinterland and the inland villages of the Sunshine Coast. Local government policy context Population growth and major infrastructure development on the Sunshine Coast has driven investment and business growth. With a population increasing by an annual average of 2.5 per cent between the census years of 2011 and 2016, and gross regional product growing in the order of 5.0

10 Version 21 October 2019 per cent per annum (Table 1), the Sunshine Coast has been actively investing in infrastructure to foster local-global connections and opportunities for business growth (Sunshine Coast Council, 2013, 2018b). The Sunshine Coast Airport has been expanded to support international flights, leasing airport operations to a commercial partner and plans to connect it to Caloundra with a light rail link. A new Maroochydore Central Business District has been developed on a greenfield site next to the existing town centre, and is offering new office and residential space, and with international connectivity via an international submarine broadband cable. At Kawana, a new public hospital and a recently completed building program at the University of the Sunshine Coast are also stimulating business activity in the region. Outside these areas, in 2017 the council commissioned a 15MW solar farm, west of Coolum, to offset all of its own electricity consumption (Jamieson, 2017; Salt, 2017).

As a result of its infrastructure initiatives, the Sunshine Coast Council is regarded as a pioneer on smart city initiatives (Yigitcanlar, Kamruzzaman, Buys, & Perveen, 2018). In 2017 Infrastructure Australia listed the Sunshine Coast as one of five cities in addition to the state capitals that will drive productivity in Australia, and in 2019 it was ranked as one the Intelligent Community Forum’s top seven intelligent communities of 2019, based on its performance in innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity and sustainable energy solutions (Jamieson, 2017; "Region’s brilliance recognised on world stage in New York," 2019).

Noosa Shire Council’s approach to regional development differs to that of the Sunshine Coast, with it strategically growing priority industry sectors to maintain its urban footprint and cap its population. For Noosa, finding ways to diversify its economy away from tourism, retail and construction is imperative (Noosa Shire Council, 2015, p. 8). According to Economic Development Manager Anthony Dow, Sunshine Coast Council is doing a “great job on leading” infrastructure development in the region, while the Peregian Digital Hub means Noosa can benefit from “having the natural environment and then the infrastructure”.

Given all this, there could be greater focus on leveraging these fundamental growth assets to promote the role of cultural and creative activity in social and economic development.

Strategic theme 1 Interrelationships across the sub sectors of the creative industries The Sunshine Coast region is home to a full spectrum of cultural and creative activity, ranging from fully-publicly-funded and council-managed galleries and festivals (for example, the Noosa Regional Art Gallery and the Horizon and Caloundra Music Festivals) through to fully-commercial media companies, architects and a growing cohort of software developers (for example, Network Seven Sunshine Coast and its production hub for the rest of regional Queensland). Between those ends of the spectrum, hybrid models are emerging—for example, arts centres that are publicly underwritten with base funding, but are to at least some extent covering their operating costs (Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre, The Old Ambulance Station in Nambour) and co-working spaces for emerging and high-tech start-up companies (the Peregian Digital Hub).

With such an array of support and business models, different views of what the creative industries represent are at play on the Sunshine Coast. On the one hand, the creative industries are seen as high-tech and scalable digital businesses that have enormous commercial potential to contribute to economic development (Brennan, 2019; Di Blasi, 2019). Professor Phil Graham, for example, pointed to the development of Sunshine Coast University’s Creative Industries program as an important new

11 Version 21 October 2019 anchor which allows young people to stay in the area while building creative careers. On the other hand, from a creative arts perspective, it is seen as an “ecology that includes everything from sole traders and independent artists to cultural institutions like galleries, museums and performing arts centres” and that is reliant on subsidisation and is being encouraged to become more commercial (Rowland, 2019). The Horizon Festival, for example, is explicitly about social inclusion and community building, connecting the diverse communities of the Sunshine Coast through the arts.

Given this range, there is a need for greater clarity around the rationale for support and the outcomes expected for fully publicly-funded arts and culture.

The Horizon Festival’s rationale for public funding should rest on social indicators as much as cultural indicators. To what extent do projects like it reach out beyond the more affluent coastal population to the young families living further inland who make up a significant proportion of population growth? How do they factor in the needs of the widely different demographics of lifestyle retirees, school-age and postschool/post-compulsory education youth, and young welfare families?

There is also a generational shift in the people who engage with the arts and culture and how they do so, with Phil Smith observing that it is becoming harder to get creatives involved in participating as audiences or facilitators than it should be. There is evidence that significant differences, stereotypes and prejudices in attitudes to arts, culture and creative industries risk alienation of some practitioners and lost opportunities for collaboration. Although the sectors we have observed in the region do encompass the full spectrum of the creative industries, there is little recognition at an institutional level of the opportunities that may arise from building tighter connections across the sectors. There is a community of creatives, “makers” and createch entrepreneurs who are emerging independently of the Sunshine Coast’s institutions—and an increasing recognition of the need to make entrepreneurship training available to cultural practitioners in addition to supporting higher- tech start-ups (Paddenburg, 2019; Smith, 2019). Councils’ arts and culture focus and strategy With the economic development policies of both the Noosa Shire and Sunshine Coast councils focussed on growing innovative tech-focussed creative businesses, the arts and culture activities of the two councils are managed under separate strategic plans, alongside the state-appointed Regional Arts Service Network provider, the Creative Arts Alliance, which develops limited programs on an even more limited budget.

The Sunshine Coast Council’s first-ever Arts Plan 2018-2038 was developed in consultation with more than 1000 local artists and arts sector workers, led by the Sunshine Coast Arts Advisory Board. The plan defines the role to be taken by the council on arts and culture projects as: “facilitator, advocate, partner, provider, asset owner, investor, information and service provider and creative leader” (Sunshine Coast Council, 2018a, p. 17).

A centrepiece is the Horizon Festival, which was launched in 2016. In January 2019 it renewed its commitment to the festival until 2023, increasing its budget (in recognition of the festival’s lack of success in raising grants and analysis showing a direct correlation between festival participation and monies expended) and adopting a new Horizon Development Plan 2019-23. Included are social inclusion and wellbeing objectives; pathways for local artists to develop content, skills and networks; unique arts experiences that engage and inspire; strong social and community benefits for Sunshine Coast residents; and direct economic impact and tourism benefits. Planning includes the development of key festival hubs (including using the new Maroochydore CBD), one key blockbuster

12 Version 21 October 2019 event, an indigenous focus and cultural tourism opportunities, and local arts sector development opportunities.

Noosa adopted its five-year Cultural Plan 2019-2023 in December 2018, with the council needing time to re-establish its planning processes after its de-amalgamation in 2015. The plan takes “culture” to include vocational and recreational arts, the more commercial creative industries and cultural heritage. With the plan referring to “a collaborative and supportive [community who] will readily work together to produce an activity or event” Noosa Shire Council does not run festivals or events, with the focus of the plan being the cultural infrastructure managed by council, its gallery, multi-use theatre and its libraries (Noosa Shire Council, 2018b).

Councils’ galleries and arts centres are evolving. One of the more innovative aspects of cultural policy and planning on the Sunshine Coast includes a shift from social enterprise to business enterprise. Both the Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre and The Old Ambulance Station in Nambour encourage artists and cultural producers to commercialise their work, thereby progressing their artistic careers rather than simply renting gallery space, while also contributing to their local communities by running workshops and courses. Another aspect of their evolution is the networking and coordination between the centres—they do not operate in isolation, but cooperate within a regional network that extends from Noosa to Caloundra and provides artists with a pathway from their first exhibition at a regional gallery to the prizes offered and coordinated by the Caloundra and Noosa regional art galleries (Brennan, 2019; "Calling budding artists," 2018; Mooney & Sharples, 2019).

The Sunshine Coast Council’s two festivals, the Caloundra Music Festival and the Horizon Festival, are evolving their approaches to social enterprise—although it did appear at the time of our interviews that the creative community might benefit from a clearer articulation of the council’s role and interests. Speaking with us soon after the Sunshine Coast Council approved its new Horizon Festival plan, some interviewees worried that Horizon was failing to deliver promised development opportunities for the local community, including in social cohesion. The festival’s new curatorial framework looks to address these points.

The Sunshine Coast Council’s cultural policy needs to connect more strongly with its economic development policy as the latter works to make the region attractive for business re-location. The Council will be moving into its new CBD space in the next three to four years and the Creative Arts Alliance and SunCentral are working together to activate buildings in the new Maroochydore CBD as cultural spaces as they progressively open for business over the next 20 years. If the new CBD can facilitate cultural production and consumption dynamics it will make the place more attractive for business relocation (Di Blasi, 2019; Smith, 2019). The Council’s Arts and Heritage Manager Claudia Di Blasi (2019) said: “The biggest conversation the economic development team have with me is, we get people to come here … and they use the attractor of beautiful environment, cheaper to live here than to live in a big city. [B]ut when the people come here, what do they do? What do they do on their weekends? … [M]y child's interested in the arts, what is there for them? What are the school programs and the history of the region?”. Grants programs are arts focused—RASN, RADF and other programs While local councils are aware of other models of support and engagement, grants continue to be an important form of income for the sector. Megan Rowland (2019) told us that grant funding is “just as valid as a pay for product or service model… We expect to hear new music on the radio, we expect to see art in the galleries with free entry. Who is paying the artist to create these products? Grants,

13 Version 21 October 2019 subsidies and government funding is part of the ecology and community experience the arts for free or low cost or as part of their everyday.”

We found, however, little evidence that on the ground people had a strong sense of the range of funding sources available in the region, even though the councils and regional arts organisations offer regular fora on grants and grant writing. The Refinery’s Coby Sullivan (2019), for example, told us that it can be difficult to find out how to access funding, that it is not clear where to go and who to talk to. Those that are familiar with the different funding programs available criticised them for being insufficient, challenging and bureaucratic—but also gave us conflicting opinions about whether the local councils were significant funders of the arts or not.

We also found that the available arts funding programs are under-delivering to the Sunshine Coast (Figure 7). At the federal level, it received Australia Council funding in only two of the last four years and at the state level, of the eight state-government-run arts funding programs listed on the Queensland government’s website, only one scheme, the Queensland Arts Showcase Program (QASP), delivered arts funding to the Sunshine Coast region in the last three years. Last year, in 2018, the region’s artists received no funding from the Australia Council and four grants under the QASP. These were all under the Arts Impact category, with three out of the four going to festivals rather than directly to artists: $8700 for the Nambour Winter Jazz Festival, $15,000 to Sunshine Coast Council for the indigenous Dawn Awakening festival, $17,000 to artist Meaghan Shelton and $60,000 for the 2019 Sunshine Coast Anywhere Festival (Arts Queensland, 2019).

At the local level, the biggest source of arts grants is the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF), a funding partnership between the Queensland Government and local government which is administered by local councils. Total RADF funding expended in the region is significantly greater than grants expended through the Queensland Arts Showcase Program, with the Sunshine Coast receiving from the state government a total of $110,000 and Noosa $46,000 per annum (unindexed). The RADF grant sizes are, however, very small—the mean grant in 2018 was $2,015.

Arts grant funding on the Sunshine Coast In the first half of 2019, two Sunshine Coast creative practitioners successfully obtained funding from two government grant programs: Sunshine Coast band Bearfoot received a Queensland Arts Showcase Program grant of $24,500 to assist them record and release their debut album, and a Sunshine Coast RADF grant of $1500 to help them expand their reach; and artist and chairmaker Michael Epworth won an Australia Council grant for Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups of $42,311 and Queensland Arts Showcase Program grant of $26,000 (Arts Queensland, 2019; Australia Council, 2019; Sunshine Coast Council, 2019).

Grants funding does not represent the entirety of local government subsidisation of creative activity. For example, Kate Edmiston and Claudia Di Blasi told us about Sunshine Coast Council’s Creative Spaces program that connects artists to low-cost working and studio spaces, meeting demand for affordable space to create and collaborate for low-income practitioners. The program operates across the region/hinterland and is not artwork specific. The council also allocates funds raised through its heritage levy and parking meters to cultural activities.

14 Version 21 October 2019 Figure 7 Federal, state and local government arts grants by year (nominal dollars to June 2019) Total value of grants expended Mean grant per recipient

Note: Excludes Regional Arts Service Network program funding Sources: Arts Queensland (2019), Australia Council (2019), Noosa Shire Council (2019) and Sunshine Coast Council (2019)

The fourth source of arts and culture support in the region is the Creative Arts Alliance, the Regional Arts Service Network (RASN) provider, an organisation that spans the breadth of creatives and chaired/convened currently by Phil Smith, a local architect. Appointed as the RASN provider in 2018, the Creative Arts Alliance started as a Noosa Council initiative in 2008, then became the Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance in 2009, before re-establishing as the Creative Arts Alliance in 2018 (Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance, 2019). Responsible for arts program delivery in six local government areas north of Brisbane, interviewees regarded it as actively working to develop a strong network between artists (Waldron, 2019). We saw this at first hand, at a breakfast gathering to launch The Refinery (see below), the extent to which it effectively networks across the creative spectrum.

In its RASN role, the Creative Arts Alliance is working with very limited resources. We were advised that it receives $240,000 each year from the state government, from which $120,000 is allocated to salaries and administration, leaving about $110,000 for program delivery. Even with program funding being matched by local partners (which may include in-kind funding), this allows for less than $15,000 to deliver programs in each local government area per year.

A further constraint for the Creative Arts Alliance was explained by Phil Smith (2019). The types of programs it delivers cannot be generalised for the whole region. While programs need to play to localised strengths they nevertheless need to expand and become regional programs over two to three years. This is forcing it to look for opportunities that require little direct investment. One example is its work with the Sunshine Coast Council to activate spaces for low-income creatives: it is about to take over the council’s Caloundra Transit Centre to run it as a creative collective with micro- tenancies and foster a creative leadership program (Edmiston, 2019; Smith, 2019). Creative careers With a full spectrum of creative activity and diversity of business models, there is also a variety of possible creative career pathways in the Sunshine Coast. We encountered several career pathway models at play:

Busy professionals are fully occupied running their own businesses, contributing to the economy. These are professionals that risk flying under the radar—they are too busy to participate in consultation on the policies that might benefit their sector. This career type was exemplified by the

15 Version 21 October 2019 architects we interviewed—architecture is a particularly strong sector on the Sunshine Coast, and the most successful practices are working at capacity with high demand for existing properties (Singer, 2018). It is also the norm in the innovative tech sector, with people fully committed to growing their businesses and the local economy and increasingly with artists who want to professionalise and commercialize their practice.

Portfolio careers are necessitated by the precarious nature of creative employment and was the most common work pattern we observed amongst cultural producers, particularly performers, on the Sunshine Coast. Examples of portfolio careers are very diverse and include actor and radio announcer, Sam Coward, who began his career as a live theatre performer. He now combines working for radio station HOT 91.1 with running an entertainment company, XS Entertainment, that he co-directs with his wife (Coward, 2019). Musicians Cara Robinson and Hat Fitz are another example, who became festival organisers after deciding there was not enough live music on the Sunshine Coast and building a venue on their property to host international and national acts. They have however “pulled back” on hosting bands, saying it became too large and raised concerns about insurance and crowd control. For the last three years Robinson has been program consultant for the Woodford blues stage (Robinson, 2019). And difficulty sourcing ongoing public funding for their independent opera company Operatif! led Stewart Cameron and Jennifer Parish to start organising tours of musical events, from Opera on the Harbour in Sydney, to events in Tonga and Italy. (OPERATIF!, 2019; "Tours with a niche difference," 2018).

The brokers are people with experience who are giving back, contributing to the industries in which they have deep expertise. We interviewed two important brokers, who are making significant and positive impacts on the development of the creative industries on the Sunshine Coast. Architect Phil Smith’s work with the Creative Arts Alliance is a personal passion, part of living a creative life and giving back to the community (Smith, 2019). Michael Doneman, on the other hand, is not a creative practitioner, but a businessman and entrepreneurship coach, co-founder of Edgeware Creative Entrepreneurship and Innovator in residence at Comlink. He has had a deep involvement with developing The Old Ambulance Station and the revitalisation of Nambour, and has been key in social entrepreneurship approach, bringing together digital and scientific innovations in creative ways to address important health and social service challenges (Doneman, 2019).

Publicly-funded arts workers. Although some of our interviewees were somewhat critical of the money spent on salaries for arts workers while there is so little money available for direct investment in the arts, publicly-funded arts workers are crucial for coordinating and resourcing creative activities in the region. Examples of arts workers whose roles are acknowledged as critical are Alicia Staples from the Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre and the Creative Arts Alliance’s Kate Edmiston.

Not a career, volunteer. As everywhere, strong informal networks and active community involvement support the creative industries on the Sunshine Coast, with the museums and council galleries heavily dependent on volunteers. Kate Edmiston spoke about people who are not necessarily interested in earning money from their art or professionalising but engage in artistic practice personally as a form of well-being and to contribute positively to their local community as a social good. A different community of practitioners was identified by Michael Brennan, director of the Noosa Regional Gallery, people who identify as artists but have had successful careers elsewhere, giving them the stability to shift their focus to their art.

16 Version 21 October 2019 Broadcasting and print media as community pillars and major-scale producers of place and cultural identity The Sunshine Coast is an important hub for regional Queensland broadcasting services, with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Grant Broadcasters and EON Broadcasters operating radio studios and Network Seven a television studio in Maroochydore, and community broadcasters based in Buderim. According to Simon Van Der Spoel (2019), a media professional working as one of four producers for Seven Network Queensland, its Maroochydore studio produces seven news bulletins a day for the state, local bulletins for Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Wide Bay, Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba, with live bulletins for the Sunshine Coast region and around 300 advertisements per annum, plus occasional programs extolling the Sunshine Coast lifestyle broadcast by Seven to the rest of Queensland and Australia. Van Der Spoel also undertakes documentary filmmaking and photography passion projects in his “spare time.”

The role of broadcast advertising, community-oriented and tourism-related programming constitute a major-scale contribution to popular perceptions of sense of place, community belonging and cultural identity.

Despite the presence of the television industry, the Sunshine Coast is lacking a strong screen production industry. Local audiovisual producer Adam Erbacher (2019), for example, specialises in corporate videos and commercials and works independently of the television sector, with about 30 per cent of his work coming from businesses based in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. According to Erbacher, larger companies on the Sunshine Coast would not look inside the region for production services but would be more likely to look for producers in Brisbane. Cheaper technology costs mean that the barriers to entering the industry are falling: Erbacher told us he needs to keep up with technological advancements to improve workflow and quality (Erbacher, 2019).

Strategic theme 2: The relationship of cultural and creative activity to the wider economy

Creative talent finds the magnet, finds the opportunities that they are inspired and are passionate about. So for me, it's about opportunities for creators and innovators (Paddenburg, 2019).

The Sunshine Coast’s highly elaborated “innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem”: Where are the creative industries? The innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem developed on the Sunshine Coast is a great success (see Figure 8). As one example, in 2018 the only successful Queensland businesses in the federal government’s Entrepreneur’s Programme: Accelerating Commercialisation were from the Sunshine Coast. The entrepreneurship ecosystem undoubtedly underpins much of the vibrancy of start-up culture and deserves consideration as a model for other regions.

However, there is a definite gap between arts and culture and start-up culture on the Sunshine Coast. We stress this is a “good” problem to have, because most regions don’t have the Sunshine Coast’s elaborated innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. The two interface across different council and government portfolios and personnel, so the silos are very much reflected and reinforced at the government level. Both the Sunshine Coast Council and Noosa Shire Council

17 Version 21 October 2019 prioritise developing opportunities for innovative high-tech and digital content activities under their economic development policies and deal with arts and culture under separate plans. The two councils are looking at investment in innovation and entrepreneurship for somewhat different reasons—Sunshine Coast Council sees the high-tech creative sector as important for attracting investment and driving growth, while Noosa believes it will provide sustainable and environmentally-friendly economic diversification. But the attitude from the arts side was consistent across both, that is, that the reputation of the start-up scene is overblown. From the economic development side, it was that the arts scene was locked into a traditional public funding mindset.

Key here are the sophisticated planning and strategy frameworks of the Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast, a well-established and nationally-leading regional innovation infrastructure institution, and the strategic regional development planning being coordinated through the federal/state/local government #SCRIPT partnership:

 The Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast was set up with the aim of retaining talent in the region and to stop leakage overseas and interstate by providing assistance to launch and scale businesses. It currently has 33 members, with membership fees starting “at about $400” (Paddenburg, 2019). With a national profile, the Innovation Centre attracts entrepreneurs from across the eastern seaboard, attracted by the Sunshine Coast lifestyle.  Established in 2017, the #SCRIPT (Sunshine Coast Regional Innovation Project Team) program has $1 million in invest over three years in business innovation and tech educators and training providers. Initiated under the state government regional innovation program, Advance Queensland, with Regional Development Australia Sunshine Coast, the councils and 31 other local organisations matching funding, #SCRIPT identifies five key areas (pillars) for focussing its resources: smart cities, food and agribusiness, health and wellbeing, sustainability and environment, and creative industries (#SCRIPT, 2019; Sullivan, 2019).  The Innovation Centre hosted Demo Days for each of the five industry pillars. For the creative industries day, the top 10 of about 25 applicants pitched their ideas to about 150 people. According to Innovation Centre CEO Mark Paddenburg, this was a daunting experience, but the applicants had seen what the program achieved for food an agribusiness and wanted to learn more about developing business models themselves (Paddenburg, 2019).

Figure 8 There is a clear sense from interviews with the CEO of the Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast Mark Pattenburg and the Sunshine Coast Council’s Head of Industry Advancement Anne Lawrence of what is being delivered against the first four of the #SCRIPT pillars: smart cities and sustainability and environment (International Broadband Submarine Cable landing station at Maroochydore, new Maroochydore CBD with advanced sustainability and environment technologies, activation strategies around public art/cultural consumption spaces, major upgrade of airport); food and agribusiness (locally branded produce start ups, proposals for tourism centres); and health and well- being (new Sunshine Coast hospital, Sunshine Coast Health Precinct). This is to be expected, given the sophisticated planning and strategy groundwork in place.

However, the status of creative industries among #SCRIPT’s innovation and entrepreneurship pillars may need sharper focus. Reflecting larger scale national and international debates, there is a difference between, on the one hand, creative industries as sector deserving of new economy status and of consequent policy and program support and, on the other hand, creative skills as an enabling input (compare this to the role of ‘enabling technologies’ in innovation theory) including as a lifestyle factor for attracting business investment. Clarity about the different opportunities these

18 Version 21 October 2019 Figure 9

two approaches present and rationales for supporting them are needed. Near Field Creative is an example of the “enabling input” model:

Near Field Creative, member of the Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast Online sales and marketing manager Duncan Barker established his business Near Field Creative with the initial goal of developing wearable technology for fundraising: “less and less people are carrying cash and because fundraising is competitive enough.” Barker started by creating a clothing label targeted at gamers in order to establish a manufacturing supply chain, before embedding wearable technology that was useable by small business. Near Field Creative has worked with “one of Australia’s biggest bands” on smart merchandising, that gives fans access to exclusive content and is developing a “lead capture solution”, so people can immediately initiate contact at an event or conference. In July 2019, Near Field Creative received the first Australian investment from international technology company Everledger after pitching to Queensland’s newly- appointed Chief Entrepreneur and blockchain tech pioneer Leanne Kemp at a members-only event in November 2018. For Barker, the benefits of the Innovation Centre include “being able to have a surf before work and hit the ground running”(Barker, 2018, 2019; Innovation Centre, 2018).

The outstanding example of a program specifically designed for the creative industries as a sector is The Refinery, a business development program aimed at assisting arts and cultural practitioners build sustainable businesses, including in the fashion, retail, e-commerce, education, environment and First Peoples sectors. A partnership between Sunshine Coast Council, the Creative Arts Alliance and SunCentral, and partly funded by #SCRIPT, The Refinery’s first program was delivered by QUT’s Creative Enterprise Australia between May and July 2019. Nicole Jordan, Executive Manager, Development & Operations, QUT CEA and the Creative Arts Alliance’s Phil Smith both spoke about how the dominant model of start-up culture—rapid scaling tech businesses designed to be bought

19 Version 21 October 2019 out—inhibits support for the “slower burn” lifestyle businesses characteristic of much of the creative industries, especially in regional areas. Jordan argued that much regional creative industries business development could learn from the very distinct business culture of the Northern Rivers/Byron Bay, based on sustainability, cultural alignment and longer-term horizons.

The first Refinery programs have already had an impact, with all 15 people invited from nearly 90 applicants completing the program, and vying for $10,000 in funding for their new venture. Three participants have already sourced funding for their ideas—digital content resources: for teachers, for having difficult conversations with children, and on nature trails.

Another example is the Peregian Digital Hub in Noosa. A physical place rather than a program, it is owned and operated by the council, independently of #SCRIPT, and was established to drive entrepreneurial activity—for locals, providing youth development and mature age reskilling opportunities, and attracting new talent, particularly in the evolving disciplines that are changing the future of work (Dow, 2019; Hinchcliffe, 2018; Noosa Shire Council, 2015, p. 8). Offering shared work spaces, gigabyte fibre connectivity and onsite entrepreneurial support, the Hub opened in September 2018, with 40 people working at the site including both sole entrepreneurs wanting to get out their home office and established businesses (Hinchcliffe, 2018; Sullivan, 2019). According to Anthony Dow, it is attracting specialists in areas including AI, coding and blockchain: “the talent that we are attracting, are critical thinkers, are designers, are creatives and they are driving the new opportunities for diversification. They’re designing new things and using new technologies.”

Ben Duncan, atmail Ben Duncan, founder of atmail, an email service provider, was a key instigator of the Peregian Digital Hub. He founded Atmail in 1998, and relocated to Peregian Beach from Sydney after ‘discovering’ the Sunshine Coast on a 2001 working road trip, developing his company and programming in the desert while travelling with friends. Duncan’s presentation at TEDx Noosa in 2013 created the impetus for Noosa Shire Council to establish a co-working place. He described how a place that was affordable, with other tech-entrepreneurs around and meet-ups, drinks after work and people talking about their ideas would create an ecosystem that would allow “magic” to happen. In 2018, atmail moved all its operations for his headquarters and its R&D to the Hub. In July 2019, 30-plus of Atmail’s global employees met at the Hub for their annual sales conference (atmail, 2018; Peregian Digital Hub, 2019)

Creative entrepreneurs are flourishing—often independently of public support We saw a similar spirit of entrepreneurialism amongst many creatives on the Sunshine Coast that we witnessed in other hotspots. A spirit of not necessarily relying on public bodies and institutions, seeking out alternative income sources, leveraging networks, of being “inherently entrepreneurial” (Rowland, 2019). The difference, if there was one, lay in the lower level of strategic focus on the part of public bodies in and with respect to the Sunshine Coast.

Fashion design, for example, is one of the more dynamic areas of the creative industries on the Sunshine Coast. This strength also came out at The Refinery—four of the 15 ideas that were accepted into its program were for fashion start-ups, and one of its case studies was of local ethical travelwear designer, Tasi Travels (Beale, 2018). The region has its own Sunshine Coast International Fashion Festival that showcases local designers and “is renowned for discovering new design talent” ("Emerging talent," 2018).

There is a wide range of entrepreneurial creative industry businesses in the Sunshine Coast region. Examples of creative services businesses include:

20 Version 21 October 2019  Advertising and marketing: Sticks and Stones Agency, Joseph Mark (planning on moving to the region)  Architecture and design: Amanda Shadforth – Oracle Fox, Karina Sharpe Imagery, Various Artists, Lara Stone the Label, Boom Shankar, Karmin Kenny Alabaster Trader, Matt Haynes, Tasi Travels  Software and digital content: Alkira Software, Preventum/Ipug

Examples of cultural production businesses include:

 Film, TV and radio: ACC TV, Food Matters  Music and performing arts: Low Pressure Production, OJ – Yami-Nui, LJ Projects, Linsey Pollack, Cello Dreaming, Katie Noonan and Zac Hurren (Eumundi School of Rock), Prysim  Visual arts: Pottery for the Planet, Sunshine Coast Collective Markets and Syndicate Creative, Kim Wallace Ceramics Industrial design and advanced manufacturing— leveraging federal government industry support There is evidence that manufacturers on the Sunshine Coast are also drawing on creative industry knowledge and expertise, and gaining in some cases international recognition for their work. We were however unable to identify advanced manufacturing clusters. This is perhaps not surprising; Helimods’ founder Will Shrapnel has said that it was “the region’s historic lack of diversity and depth of industry had driven many to become entrepreneurs … it’s unintentional entrepreneurship” (Sawyer, 2019).

There is several industrial design companies that are attracting national and international attention for innovative products that rely on creative industry inputs. The helicopter modification and engineering company Helimods is stand-out example of an advanced manufacturer and industrial designer using innovative design technologies. Founded in 2002 and named Telstra Queensland Business of the Year in 2018, it was an early adopter of Computer Assisted Design (CAD) technology, digital lathes and 3D printers (Holdsworth, 2019; Norris, 2018, 2019). Another industrial design example is Praesidium Global, a robotics and AI specialist which aims to be an international leader in military Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) that give their customers “an unfair advantage on the battlefield.” In June 2018 The Australian Army committed to buying four of its UGVs and accessories at a total cost of $2 million for an evaluation trial ("Australian Army to acquire more unmanned ground vehicles," 2018; Praesidium Global, 2019). Other examples include the hospital cabinetry manufacturer Smartline Machinery which in 2018 received $150,000 to fast track the development of software from the federal government (Cumming, 2018), Provectus Algae, whose prototype software-controlled algae-powered LED lighting system won $40,000 in commercialisation funding from the federal government (Dionysius, 2018a; Moffat, 2018), the fully robotic/automated factories operated by The Scooter Group and the automated food growing systems produced by vertical farm systems. Software development There is also a burgeoning community of software developers who are creating cloud-based solutions to automate regulatory and process work. Examples include Pro Software, which offers a suite of software tools to help trucking companies comply with the National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme (J. Graham, 2018) and EyeOnIt, which offers a dashboard that interfaces with a company’s phone lines and computers and a telecommunications workflow management tool

21 Version 21 October 2019 (Swaine, 2018), while Typefi has developed book production software that bypasses the publisher and has won the 2018 Premier of Queensland’s Export Award for Small Business (Dionysius, 2018b).

Digital infrastructure

Generally, the Sunshine Coast is a remarkably well-connected region, with its international submarine broadband cable that connects Maroochydore directly to the United States and high levels of mobile and NBN connectivity (Figure 10).Coverage in the hinterland is, however, patchy. The regional galleries on the coast are connected, but digital infrastructure is not up to speed for museums (Waldron, 2019). The Creative Arts Alliance is concerned that internet issues in the hinterland may limit opportunities there for growth and job creation (Edmiston, 2019).

Figure 10 NBN and Telstra mobile coverage, August 2019 NBN Telstra mobile

Sources: NBN (2019), Telstra (2019)

The status of tourism One of the things that struck us quite forcefully was the lack of cross-referencing in our interviews to tourism. This may simply be a product of missing key informants, but it may also go to the status of cultural tourism on the Sunshine Coast. Tourism is without question one of the most significant industries in the region—attracting over three million visitors each year, it is the fourth largest industry in the Sunshine Coast local government area and the largest in Noosa (.id, 2019 ; Yigitcanlar et al., 2018). While there did seem to be a mixed recognition of the potential of tourism to open opportunities for the creative industries and certainly more work needs to be done on integrating creative industry sectors with tourism, there are a number of plans underway to sharpen the focus on cultural tourism.

From an economic development perspective, tourism is identified as a high-value industry in the Sunshine Coast Council’s economic plans (Sunshine Coast Council, 2013, 2018b), with visitors spending $1.8 billion each year and contributing 5.2 per cent of total economic value add (Figure 11). Anne Lawrence told us that the Council recognises that maintaining strong visitor spend relies on ensuring growth in tourism offerings that encourage people to stay longer. This will involve distinct experiences that draw strongly on the region’s unique culture and landscape. The Council

22 Version 21 October 2019 and the Regional Tourism Organisation are working with Kabi Kabi and Jinibara people to support the development of new cultural tourism experiences that will appeal to high yield independent travellers.

The Sunshine Coast Council’s commitment to supporting Indigenous cultural tourism is articulated in its policy documents: the Sunshine Coast Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) 2017-2019: Action Item 10, the Sunshine Coast Heritage Plan: 2015-2020, December 2015 edition; the Tourism, Sport and Leisure Industry and Investment Action Plan 2014-2018; and the Sunshine Coast Environment and Liveability Strategy Part A: Strategic Directions. In 2019, Sunshine Coast Council introduced a waiver for permit application fees for Kabi Kabi and Jinibara-owned tourism businesses seeking to operate a commercial activity on Council land. This initiative is one of a suite of reforms being actioned by Sunshine Coast Council. Under the Tourism, Sport and Leisure Industry Investment Plan Sunshine Coast Council is working directly with existing and emerging First Nation businesses to support the identification of relevant market opportunity, partnership opportunities, distribution channels and business development supports.

Noosa Shire Council is acutely aware of its economic dependence on tourism, which contributes 11.6 per cent of the area’s economic value add, more than twice the level in the Sunshine Coast (Figure 11): “Noosa is naturally endowed with the assets which … create the tourism product” (Dow, 2019). It is, however, explicitly working to diversify its economy, with the Noosa economic plan recognising that cultural assets also have potential to supplement tourism, attracting new visitors, encouraging them to extend their stay and to spend more (Noosa Shire Council, 2018b).

Figure 11 Tourism industry indicators, Sunshine Coast and Noosa

On the ground, the thinking around the potential of tourism for creative practitioners was mixed. It undoubtedly presents cost pressures, but it also generates opportunities. The Sunshine Coast is a destination wedding location for people in Brisbane, with people from Sydney and Melbourne and the occasional couple from overseas marrying there also (Burnett, 2019). The region’s many festivals provide opportunities for local artists as well as tourism businesses, creating a stronger unified sense of place and identity to deliver unique experiences and creative products for tourists (Edmiston, 2019).

23 Version 21 October 2019 Tourism promotion may be a growth market for screen production, with Michael Erbacher’s The Film Tree producing videos for Tourism Sunshine Coast’s Study Sunshine Coast, promoting the region to international students, and the Seven Network’s Simon van der Spoel producing content that extolls the Sunshine Coast lifestyle (Erbacher, 2019; van der Spoel, 2019). According to der Spoel, “the Sunshine Coast is a powerful attractor of families. Lifestyle and the climate are important factors in attracting these families to the coast,” and both his and the council’s content speaking to it being a family friendly location. “Fun in the Sun. It's why we receive so many tourists from Victoria and Tasmania and they come up here in their winter which is really warm to them up here. We get people from Northern Queensland come down because you can actually swim here and you won’t get stung by stingers. We are in that perfect little bubble of just right of about everything”.

Tourism plans integrating the region’s culture and environment is beginning to emerge. One example, the Hanseath Tourism Precinct, which was recently before the Sunshine Coast Council, proposes to provide tourism experiences around local produce and products, meeting demand for food tourism, which is a growing segment of the international travel market. Costing $60 million, the proposed development includes a brewery, accommodation, a transit centre and areas promoting locally-grown and made food products, with investors estimating it will create 763 ongoing jobs (Moffat, 2019).

Indigenous cultural assets have potential to underpin tourism business growth. At present, they are not as prominent as examples in Cairns and the Gold Coast. Founded in 1996, the Gubbi Gubbi Dancers developed the signature closing event of the Horizon Festival, the Dawn Awakening ceremony, which with assistance from the council and $15,000 from the Queensland Arts Showcase Program is now being redeveloped as an independent standalone event (Arts Queensland, 2019). In 2019 the Horizon Festival offered a new indigenous program, Blak Social, curated by indigenous producer Alethea Beetson and an arts advisory group of senior indigenous people and included performers from Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Far North Queensland in addition to the local Gubbi Gubbi Dancers. Other indigenous cultural businesses include the TribalLink Centre at the Queensland Conference and Camping Centre in Mapleton and Goombucker Creations which offer indigenous cultural and education resources to the local community.

The Sunshine Coast Council is working with Indigenous businesses to identify opportunities and business development support mechanisms. For example, in 2019 the council introduced a waiver for permit application fees for indigenous tourism businesses seeking to operate a commercial activity on council land. New development applications lodged with Sunshine Coast Council incorporating infrastructure for cultural tourism include a new Indigenous Cultural Centre, and the Hanseath Tourism Precinct proposal which includes indigenous cultural experiences. Health We saw little evidence of developed cultural/creative strategies around health, either connected with the new hospital, high tech applications, or around aging and disability. Having said this, there were views that applying the arts in health was an area where the Sunshine Coast stands to do well (Smith, 2019; Waldron, 2019), with past collaborations including an arts and health photography project around palliative care involving Sunshine Coast University Hospital, the then Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance and Sunshine Coast Council. Phil Graham spoke about using locale and local culture to “put a creative industries angle on health” by building belonging and cultural access, and Michael Doneman spoke of seeking NDIS funding to bring together health NGOs for this purpose. #SCRIPT made investments in 2018 in line with its health investment priority, including in the Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast’s Australian Health Accelerator (AHx) Program, in The Old Ambulance Station

24 Version 21 October 2019 to host a forum on creative interventions in healthcare, and in the Australian Small Business College’s Health Development Program, to help participants to network, innovate and scale their businesses (#SCRIPT, 2018).

Given the ever-increasing public, private and philanthropic resources going into health, there is an opportunity for greater strategy and planning based on the well evidenced role that cultural and creative inputs can make into health and wellbeing. Space activation / retail Activating space for creative practitioners was a theme in a number of our interviews. The Creative Arts Alliance is working with the council to design performance and exhibition spaces to draw people to parts of the city centre as they open and office space becomes available, bringing life to the new Maroochydore CBD. Another example is the reinvigoration of Nambour: “Those of us on the ground reckon that if [Nambour] has a future, it is in creative industries, it is in a night-time economy and specifically in music. And it is in education and training” (Doneman, 2019). This vision is shaping the redevelopment of the 1980s C-Square shopping centre in Nambour, which is transforming into a community meeting place and performance venue, with creative services firms and social enterprises taking up residence ("Office by day, arts by night Business boom in the CBD," 2019).

Strategic theme 3: Comparative perspectives on hotspots Employment characteristics. In terms of employment counts, this project’s Queensland hotspots are very different sizes, with nearly twice the number of people employed in the Noosa and Sunshine Coast LGAs as Cairns, and almost twice as many in the Gold Coast as the Sunshine Coast (Table 2, Appendices C.1 and C.2). It is therefore not surprising that on a raw count basis, there are more people employed in creative occupations in the Gold Coast in all categories—except authors and editors where there are more in Noosa and the Sunshine Coast.

Looking at employment intensity, the proportion of employed people in each occupation category, the Sunshine Coast leads Cairns and the Gold Coast in: architecture and design, in ICT business and systems analysts (and is not far behind the Gold Coast in web developers and programmers), musicians, visual artists, authors and editors and journalists.

25 Version 21 October 2019 Table 2 Queensland hotspot comparisons, local government areas Cairns Gold Coast Noosa & Central West Sunshine Queensland Coast ASGS remoteness category Outer regional Major city of Inner regional Very remote Australia Australia Australia Australia RAI region type Industry and Regional city Regional city Heartland service hub region Resident population, 2016a 156,900 555,724 346,512 13,388 Employed persons, 2016b 67,460 235,526 130,978 3,351 Total creative employment, 2016 b 2,223 14,026 6,556 77 Total earnings from creative $130.0m $895.4m $385.0m $2.8m employment, 2016 b Total businesses, 2016 40,281 218,450 121,592 1,835 Total creative businesses, 2016 2,703 16,113 8,705 56 Proportion of all businesses 37.7% 41.3% 42.0% 26.8% registered for GST, 2016 Proportion of creative businesses 50.8% 48.9% 50.7% 57.6% registered for GST, 2016 Regional domestic product, 2017-18 $8,830m $35,241m $18,553m $454.0m Mean age a 37.3 years 39.1 years 42.1 years 41.3 years Unemployment ratea 8.4% 7.5% 7.6% 3.6% Youth unemployment ratea 15.4% 14.8% 15.1% 4.1% Youth unemployment ratioa 47.5% 44.0% 42.0% 33.7% Indigenousa 9.0% 1.7% 1.9% 6.0% Volunteera 14.7% 12.3% 17.0% 26.9% Note a. These statistics are provided by place of residence, and b. are by place of work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), ABR (2019), .idcommunity (2019)

Volunteerism. Interviewees stressed the importance of volunteers. Proportionally, the level of people volunteering in the Sunshine Coast is closer to that in Cairns than in the more metropolitan Gold Coast – so, more like that in a regional town than a metropolitan centre (Figure 12).

Figure 12 Volunteering rates in Queensland creative hotspots by occupation (per cent of employed persons)

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)

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27 Version 21 October 2019 Noosa Shire Council. (2018a). Corporate Plan 2017-2037. Retrieved from https://www.noosa.qld.gov.au/documents/40217326/40227860/Corporate%20Plan%202017-2037- June%202018%20Update.pdf Noosa Shire Council. (2018b). Cultural Plan 2019-2023. Retrieved from https://www.noosa.qld.gov.au/documents/40217326/41777710/2018-12- 11%20S%26O%20Agenda%20-%20Attachment%201%20to%20Item%2010%20- %20Noosa%20Cultural%20Plan%202019-2023.pdf Noosa Shire Council. (2019). RADF Previous rounds. Retrieved from: https://www.noosa.qld.gov.au/radf Norris, G. (2018, 31 August). Flying high on a lifelong passion. The Courier Mail. Norris, G. (2019, 29 January). Canadian contract coup. Sunshine Coast Daily, p. 14. Office by day, arts by night Business boom in the CBD. (2019, 19 January). Sunshine Coast Daily. OPERATIF! (2019). Our Story. Retrieved from http://www.operatif.com.au/about_history.html Paddenburg, M. (2019, 19 February) Interview/Interviewer: S. Cunningham. Peregian Digital Hub. (2019). Happenings. (July 2019). https://nosa.campaign- view.com/ua/viewinbrowser?od=27218d28c96aa859ebbe00f0de9e650191185630859ca1fd0&rd=170 a92832585af11&sd=170a92832585ae1b&n=11699e4bfc1b9c6&mrd=170a92832585ae0d&m=1 Praesidium Global. (2019). Our Vision. Retrieved from https://praesidiumglobal.com.au/our-vision/ Region’s brilliance recognised on world stage in New York. (2019, 15 June). Sunshine Coast Daily, p. 5. Regional Australia Institute. (2014). Foundations of Regional Australia. Retrieved from http://www.regionalaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Foundations-of-regional- Australia-FINAL-.pdf Robinson, C. (2019, 19 February 2019) Interview/Interviewer: M. Ryan. Rowland, M. (2019, 13 April) Personal communication. Salt, B. (2017). The activated city: Imagining the Sunshine Coast in 2014. Retrieved from http://maroochydore- city.com.au/sites/default/files/SC_KPMG_Report_FA_Digital.pdf Sawyer, S. (2018, 8 December). Mayor's recipe for success. Sunshine Coast Daily, p. 8. Sawyer, S. (2019, 20 April). Maverick, can-do attitude leads the way. Sunshine Coast Daily, p. 6. Singer, M. (2018, 10 November 2018). Noosa desire by design. The Australian. Smith, P. (2019, 9 August) Interview/Interviewer: S. Cunningham. Sullivan, C. (2019, 18 February) Interview/Interviewer: S. Cunningham. Sunshine Coast Council. (2013). Sunshine Coast - The Natural Advantage: Regional Economic Development Strategy 2013-2033. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/mario/Downloads/regional_economic_development_strategy_2013.pdf Sunshine Coast Council. (2018a). ArtsCoast - Sunshine Coast Arts Plan 2018-2038. Retrieved from https://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/Council/Planning-and-Projects/Council-Plans/Sunshine-Coast- Arts-Plan Sunshine Coast Council. (2018b). Sunshine Coast Council - Regional Economic Development Strategy: Implementation Report Card 2013-2018. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/mario/Downloads/REDS%20Report%20Card%2020132018.pdf Sunshine Coast Council. (2019). Previous successful applicants - RADF. Retrieved from: https://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/Living-and-Community/Grants-and-Funding/Funding- Outcomes/Previous-Successful-Applicants Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance. (2019). About the SCCA. Retrieved from https://www.creativealliance.org.au/about-scca/ Swaine, J. (2018, 14 July). Clever man. Caloundra Weekly. Telstra. (2019). Mobile coverage map. Retrieved from https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-networks/our- coverage Tours with a niche difference. (2018, 14 December). Noosa News, p. 37. van der Spoel, S. (2019, 20 February) Interview/Interviewer: M. Ryan. Waldron, J. (2019, 18 February) Interview/Interviewer: M. Ryan. Yigitcanlar, T., Kamruzzaman, M., Buys, L., & Perveen, S. (2018). Smart cities of the Sunshine State: Status of Queensland’s local government areas. Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/118349/

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31 Version 21 October 2019 Appendix B Creative industry employment, Noosa and Sunshine Coast, 2016

Note: Heatmaps show creative industry employment by place of work for all SA2 areas that fall within the selected local government area, including overlap areas (unless otherwise excluded). Source: Analysis of customised extract of Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016)

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