The three keynote speakers provided professional presentations on their area of expertise.
Population expert Keenan Jackson from .id the Population Experts gave a fascinating presentation on Central Coast demographics from the recent census, which showed that the coast had grown more slowly than the rest of NSW in the past five years.
He said the area of greatest growth was in the Warnervale area. The Central Coast also had a higher proportion of older people than the metropolitan areas.
He said our average age is 42 compared to 36 in Sydney. The area was becoming slightly more multi cultural, with the largest increase in Asian residents.
However the biggest growth was in the mature ranks with older couples without children representing the biggest growth demographic.
Mr Jackson said the region’s school completion rate was lower than the rest of the state, but it was improving. We are making more money, with the average household income $1258, up from $1103.
Coast households have less mortgage stress, but rent stress is up with average rentals up $80 to $350.
Health care is overwhelmingly the largest employer, followed by construction and retail. We are more likely to be a tradie or a nurse than a manager or a professional.
It is still hard to get a job on the coast with 14.6% of under 25s unemployed and 21.4% studying.
Mr Jackson said the region’s ageing population meant the biggest growth area was health care. Director of Economics at CBA Mr John Peters presented a revealing look into the world of banking.
He said Australia had recorded 26 years of uninterrupted economic growth and this showed no sign of abating with government spending and record low interest rates driving the economy.
Business and household services were the strongest areas of growth in the past year.
“The standouts were retail, accommodation and food, IT and professional, manufacturing, scientific and technical services,” he said.
“Significant production drops were restricted to utilities, wholesale trade and transport, postal and warehousing,” he said.
Of special interest to the coast was the prediction that domestic and international tourism was tipped to be a major area of growth in the coming years. China in particular was a rapidly growing tourism source.
He said Australia was “definitely in the right neighbourhood” with 54% of world growth in the Asia Pacific region.
Central Coast Council Chief Executive Officer Brian Bell presented an overview of the new council and it challenges and potential.
This included our region in comparison to other Local Government areas. The coast, for example, was larger in size than Canberra and had 334,000 residents.
Mr Bell covered the areas of Investment in our Region, Asset development in 2017-18, the Community Strategic Plan and Strategic Planning and Policy Projects,
He said the council had 2000 plus employees, was financially stable and sustainable and had $9.5B in assets
He said the annual budget was $750M with $207.9M in Capital Works. The Central Coast Community Strategic Plan was a major priority for council.
“Phase One Engagement is complete with more than 6,200 people engaged and 33,000 separate ideas and opinions presented,” he said.
The region’s major growth corridors were Tuggerah to Warnervale and Somersby to Erina. Gosford CBD had strong growth with Mr Bell introducing some of the major projects underway.
