The Sydney Business Chamber has a proud history stretching back to 1825. In fact, it’s one of the first private business organisations to have been formed in our country.
As Sydney has grown and developed from a British penal colony into a multicultural global city, the chamber has also grown and adapted to advocate policies and best practices that will support the continuing growth and success of our great city.
The chamber recognises the important part Western Sydney now plays, and that will only continue to increase in importance in future decades, to the Sydney economy and the national economy.
That’s why the role I now hold has been created and my goal is to bring our big employers together with government to advocate for the things we need to make our region of Sydney even better.
Western Sydney has tended to remain on the periphery of public policy that has shaped the way Sydney has developed – we’ve had a Sydney CBD focus that has made it the largest economic asset in Australia but has created all the other challenges we face in our city – congestion, housing affordability, cost of living and work-life balance issues.
I want to work with our large employers, our local councils and our state and federal governments to put Western Sydney front and centre of public policy development.
Western Sydney is the geographical heartland of Sydney, it’s home to an increasing majority of Sydneysiders, but it’s not delivering the economic activity – namely jobs – we need.
That’s why the main driver of the Sydney Business Chamber’s advocacy for Western Sydney will be cutting back the nearly 200,000 jobs deficit the region currently has, and is only expected to increase.
We all know it is simply folly to operate a city in which 200,000 or more people have to migrate from one side of the city in the morning and back again in the evening.
Delivering new jobs near the places people work is not just common sense, it’s good public policy that will reduce transport congestion, make housing more affordable and improve work-life balance.
But we do need strong partnerships between private enterprise and government. Business can deliver the jobs, but government needs to help provide the planning framework and the cultural assets that make regional cities an attractive place to live and work.
The Sydney CBD has some significant assets that make it a very attractive place to run a business and a place where people want to work.
The retail experience, the restaurants and cafes, the night life, theatres, parks and of course, the magnificent harbour, make it a tough competition for Liverpool, Penrith, Blacktown, Castle Hill and even Parramatta to compete.
That’s why I view it as an imperative that we develop similar assets in our region. What I hear from large employers who want to set up their businesses in Western Sydney is the difficulty in attracting staff – especially younger workers such as Gen Ys.
Young workers are attracted to the lifestyle of the inner city and the cultural pursuits that are in abundance there.
That’s something we need to meet head on if we are serious about developing our regional cities and in particular developing Parramatta as a genuine second CBD of Sydney.
We need to replicate some of these cultural pursuits that make the Sydney CBD such a great magnet for people to work, so we can attract and retain a strong workforce.
It’s a big challenge for us but I’m looking forward to contributing to the solutions that will make our region of Sydney a great place to live, work, and raise our families.
• David Borger is Western Sydney Director of the Sydney Business Chamber and former Minister for Western Sydney.
