western sydney business access - january 2015

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180,000 WEB VIEWS, 45,000 READERS EACH MONTH ISSUE 45 January 2015 FOUNDED IN PARRAMATTA WWW.WSBA.COM.AU your business, your lifestyle FREE Above, Blacktown Deputy Mayor, Russ Dickens at the undeveloped site with his dog named Cullen and inset, artist impression of the Park. SMALL BUSINESS EXCHANGE EXPO Connecting small business with government and business support For more information contact The Hills Shire Council’s Economic Development team on 02 9762 1108 www.thehills.nsw.gov.au SUPPORT PARTNER MAJOR EVENT SPONSOR SAVE THE DATE 11 MARCH 2015 8.30am - 6.00pm The Hills Shire Council 3 Columbia Court Baulkham Hills 17,000 17,000 JOBS JOBS Tide turns for Blacktown T HE multi-million dollar commercial/industrial development that is Sydney Business Park, Marsden Park will further cement Blacktown City as “the centre of the universe”, says deputy mayor Russ Dickens. With Blacktown - the largest local government area in NSW - oſten overlooked by government planners, the development will create about 17,000 jobs when fully operational in 12 years’ time and 2000 by the end of 2015. e project includes a DA from, Lindt, the Swiss chocolate maker to build a 20,330sq m warehouse, 5000sq in manufacturing and storing area over 6.6 hectares. Full story page 3 INSIDE: 7 easy steps to decluttering and profiting from it: pgs 10, 11

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180,000 WEB VIEWS, 45,000 READERS EACH MONTH ISSUE 45 January 2015 FOUNDED IN PARRAMATTA WWW.WSBA.COM.AU

your business,your lifestyle

Wanderers for sale

FREE

Above, Blacktown Deputy Mayor, Russ Dickens at the undeveloped site with his dog named Cullen and inset, artist impression of the Park.

SMALL BUSINESSEXCHANGE EXPOConnecting small business with government and business support

For more information contact The Hills Shire Council’s Economic Development team on 02 9762 1108

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SUPPORT PARTNER

MAJOR EVENT SPONSORSAVE

THE DATE

11 MARCH 20158.30am - 6.00pmThe Hills Shire Council

3 Columbia CourtBaulkham Hills

17,000 17,000 JOBSJOBS

Tide turns for Blacktown

THE multi-million dollar commercial/industrial development that is Sydney Business Park, Marsden Park will further cement Blacktown City as “the centre of the universe”, says deputy mayor Russ Dickens. With Blacktown - the largest local government area in NSW - often overlooked by government

planners, the development will create about 17,000 jobs when fully operational in 12 years’ time and 2000 by the end of 2015. The project includes a DA from, Lindt, the Swiss chocolate maker to build a 20,330sq m warehouse, 5000sq in manufacturing and storing area over 6.6 hectares. Full story page 3

INSIDE: 7 easy steps to decluttering and profiting from it: pgs 10, 11

2 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

BOOK YOUR NEXT FUNCTION

3WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

JANUARY 2015

VIEW EACH EDITION ONLINE ATwww.wsba.com.au

Western Sydney Business Access (WSBA)ABN 9336 7098 582

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M: 0407 783 413. E: [email protected]

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Assoiate editor: Di Bartok. • M: 0404 147 743

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DISCLAIMER: The publisher, authors and contributors reserve their rights in re-spect of the copyright of their work. No part of this work may be reproduced or copied in any form without the written consent of the publisher. No person or organisation should in any way act on the information and content of Western Sydney Business Access or www.wsba.com.au without fi rst seeking profes-sional advice. The publisher, contributors and agents accept no responsibility for any actions that may arise from the contents of this newspaper or website www.wsba.com.au. The opinions and views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher. Advertisements are published in accordance with WSBA terms and conditions published in the media kit downloadable at www.wsba.com.au. Advertisers agree to indemnify the publisher and his agents for any actions that may arise as a result of published advertisements.

Digging into LennoxBridge history ....................................4

Auburn developmentsite fetches $50m ..............................5

Finally we have atrue university city .............................6

Liverpool transforms intoa regional force .................................8

Why Failure happens - book extract .....................................18

Gourmet: where cafemeets heritage .................................30

Are our kids failing in maths? .......................24

Big plans for Sydney Business ParkPROJECTS

By Di Bartok

THE multi-million dollar commercial/industrial development that is Sydney Business Park, Marsden Park will fur-ther cement Blacktown City as “the

centre of the universe”, says deputy mayor Russ Dickens.

With Blacktown - the largest local govern-ment area in NSW - oft en overlooked by government planners, the development will create about 17,000 (17 thousand) jobs when fully operational in 12 years’ time, 2000 by the end of 2015.

Clr Dickens said the development will be the “shot in the arm” that Blacktown needs.

“We are already the centre of the uni-verse, and this is the largest development we have had in recent times,” he said.

“Apart from the large companies coming here, creating jobs, there will be thousands of new homes created.”

Clr Dickens said Blacktown was oft en overlooked by governments, with Parra-matt a and Penrith receiving bigger slices of the pie.

“Where is Penrith and Parramatt a? I never go there. Th is is where it is happening and we are making it happen,” Clr Dickens said.

Large companies set to be part of the business park include chocolate manufac-turers Lindt, IKEA, McDonalds, Shell, Bunnings, Masters Home Improvement, Swire Cold Storage, Costco, and Hargreaves Property Group.

According to their DA, Lindt, the Swiss chocolate makers, is set to build a 20,330sq m warehouse, 5000sq m manufacturing and storing area over 6.6 hectares, with approval expected soon.

McDonalds opened in December, Mas-ters Home Improvement expects to open May and Bunnings early in the New Year.

Development director of Sydney Business Park, Owen Walsh, said the development gave companies the chance to have their manufac-turing and sales operations on the one site.

“We are marketing the business park inter-nationally, hence calling it Sydney rather than Western Sydney Business Park,” he explained. “Th is will be a boon to the whole of Sydney, but especially the Blacktown area.”

And Russ Dickens and his fellow council-lors could not agree more.

“Th is has been a long time coming. With so many announcements about Parramatt a and Penrith, it is good to remember that here is Blacktown, the largest local government area in NSW, more than pulling its weight,” Clr Dickens said.

Details, inquiries www.sydneybusi-nesspark.com.au Above: Construction is well underway.

Above: Artist impression of the Park.

Above: Blacktown Deputy Mayor Russ Dickens on the Sydney Business Park site.

Project at a glance• Sydney Business Park plan an-

nounced 2010• 256 total hectares, 46 commercial,

27 parkland, 6 residential• North West Rail link will extend

into park• Officially opened on July 4 2013• 17,000 total jobs by 2025• 61, 900 homes surrounding park• Will include rainwater harvesting,

recycled water, alternate energy sources

Committed purchasers and tenants

Bunnings Warehouse, IKEA, Masters Home Improvement, Costco Wholesale, Shell, McDonalds, Hargreaves Property Group, Swire Cold Storage, Lindt.

4 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Scheinberg family sells site for $50M

DEVELOPMENT

RESIDENTIAL developer, Pace Consolidated Limited, has purchased an eight-hectare site in Auburn for $50 million, from the Scheinberg family.

Th e purchase represents the fi rst sale in a portfolio of industrial and residential land being sold off by the family, said to be worth $350 million.

Th e Auburn property includes three warehouses and manufac-turing facilities leased to steel manufacturer, BlueScope Steel, until July 2020. Payce paid a 10 per cent deposit with completion to occur in the fi rst quarter of 2015.

Th e company has projects in the Auburn and Parramatt a local government areas

Marina Quays, formerly known as the Sydney Olympic Park ferry wharf, includes 256 apartments and 4200 square metres of retail space, at Wentworth Point, on the Parramatt a River.

Payce and Sekisui House, Jaopan’s largest private home builder, are behind the Royal Shores project, also on the Parramatt a River, at Ermington.

Th e project has a site area of 20,382 square metres includ-ing 612 apartments consisting of nine separate buildings, on the Defence Housing Naval Stores re-development

Parramatt a City Council has granted land owner’s consent to allow Payce to lodge a permit to Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) for a proposed wharf on the eastern edge of the redevelop-ment site fronting the river.

A council report noted the RMS has advised that as there is no current intention for use of the wharf by the public ferry services the facility would need to be a privately managed wharf.

Scheinberg family also sold a 137,000-square-metre site at Dursley Road, Yennora, to Charter Hall Group’s Core Logistics Partnership, for an undisclosed sum..

Th e warehouse and distribution site, leased to Woolworths, adjoins the Yennora Distribution Centre.

Digging into Bridge historyHISTORY

START digging into history and you don’t know what you will find.

Literally digging, that is. Imag-ine the surprise of workers creating

the controversial portals in the heritage-listed Lennox Bridge on Church St when they uncovered the remains of an earlier bridge.

Seems it was presumed that when Australia’s fi rst bridge builder David Lennox built his iconic bridge in 1839, the previous Gaol Bridge, built around

1802, had been dismantled. But not so, adding another dimen-

sion to the long drawn-out project to create portals on either side of the arch to allow easy access along the foreshore.

Heritage protectors fought long and hard to have the project stopped, saying the bridge should not be touched.

While Parramatt a Council fi nally won, at least they moved the portals further away from the arch so as not to interfere too much with the integrity of the bridge’s design. And good to see that council appears committ ed to preserving the Gaol Bridge relics.

Lord Mayor Scott Lloyd, said the

works uncovered Lennox Bridge’s original western wall and part of the old Gaol Bridge.

He assured heritage lovers that coun-cil was working closely with the NSW Heritage Offi ce and archaeologists to fi nd the best way to display the artefacts.

Of course, as Parramatt a looks forward to an exciting future, it cannot forget the rich colonial past.

Th ank goodness that Parramatt a Council, as well as the Baird govern-ment, have always shown such high regard for our diminishing heritage buildings and places when considering projects.

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Traces of Lennox’s Lost Western Wall are discovered.

5WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

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Lakes swimming a mid-summer option

REACTIVATION

PARRAMATTA’S outdoor recreation oppor-tunities could be expanded with Parramatta City Council taking steps to make swimming at Lake Parramatta a permanent fixture this

summer.Lord Mayor of Parramatt a, Cr Scott Lloyd, said

that following the completion of an appropriate safety assessment, Lake Parramatt a could be open for public swimming and water recreation activities by mid-summer.

“Th e Lake Parramatt a Reserve is a signifi cant natural area within western Sydney and I am pleased that Council has voted to move forward with this proposal,” Cr Lloyd said.

“Our fi rst step is to undertake a formal risk assessment of the site. Council would then identify the safety measures that are needed to ensure a safe and clean environment for swimmers.”

Currently swimming is only permitt ed in Lake Parramatt a as part of an organised event which requires pre-approval from Council.

“Swimming and other recreation activities would re-activate Lake Parramatt a as a must-visit destination and will open up the beautiful surrounding natural environment for people to explore and enjoy.”

For more information on recreation at Lake Parramatt a visit www.parracity.nsw.gov.au.

New swim centre making wavesRECREATIO N

By Di Bartok

HOLROYD residents, it seems, are not as keen to get in the swim as they have been in the past - at least not locally.

In fact, according to Holroyd Council, fi gures, the numbers of people att ending Merrylands, Wentworthville and Guildford pools has decreased steadily over the past 35 years.

Th e council hopes to make water play and swimming more popular in the city by putt ing all their splash into the one pool - a super swim centre at Merrylands.

Th e move to close Wentworthville and Guildford pools has met with sustained op-position from those people who are regular users.

But Mayor Greg Cummings said there were not enough regular swimmers at those centres to justify keeping them open.

“Th e fi gures speak for themselves,” Clr Cummings said.

“Our fi gures show there has been a dramatic 48 per cent decline in the number of people using the local swimming pools over the past 35 years, despite an increase in population.”

Council fi gures show that in 1966, the pools had 219,976 entries with a popula-tion across the LGA of 65,983.

With the inclusion of Merrylands Pool in 1968, entries rose to a high of 408,296 in 1969.

Following the addition of Guildford

Pool in 1978, usage stabilised at around 350,000, but from the mid-1980s, patron-age started to dramatically decline even though the population of the LGA was increasing.

Th e decline accelerated in the mid 90’s with 1994 being the last year that more than 300,000 entries were recorded for council’s pools, and by the year 2000, use was down to 240,000 with a population of around 85,000.

By 2010/11, the population in the LGA had reached 100,00 yet att endance fi gures still continued to decline to under 200,000 annual visits across the three pools, a trend of declining patronage has continued up until last season.

Clr Cummings said the release of the data follows the conclusion of council’s community consultation on design options for a proposed Aquatic Wellness Centre at Merrylands.

Numbers are declining at Wentworthville Swimming Centre.

6 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

REAL PEOPLE,REAL PLACES

www.gowestgourmet.com.au page 26

Councils won’t be overlookedPARRA MATT A may be the “dual CBD” in

the State Government’’s view, as expressed in the Metropolitan Strategy, but other western Sydney councils are not to be overlooked. As Blacktown deputy mayor Russ Dickens stated when crowing about Sydney Business Park in Marsden Park - “where’s Parramatt a? I never go there.” Th is tongue-in-cheek comment from the cheeky vet echoes the sentiments of mayors and citizens of Penrith, Blacktown,

Liverpool, Holroyd and Th e Hills who are looking forward to major developments in their areas. Penrith Council has a huge project that will bring people from outside the area fl ocking to the outer western city for recre-ation. Already with the Nepean River off ering a range of water activities, Penrith is jumping for joy over the State Government’s plans for the Penrith Lakes Parkland proposal. With community consultation under way, the Park-land proposal will see major infrastructure

for international water sport events, quality recreation facilities and housing.

“Th e potential for recreation, leisure and tourism in the Penrith Lakes Parkland will add a rich dimension to the growing att rac-tion Penrith already holds for almost 1.3 million annual visitors,” Mayor Ross Fowler said aft er the government’s announcement in December. See, it does not all happen in Parramatt a.

End of free parking?AND Holroyd mayor Greg Cummings

warns that Parramatt a overtaking Holroyd will have more drawbacks than benefi ts - park-ing for one. Hitt ing out at forced mergers of council areas, Clr Cummings said an amalga-mation with Parramatt a, Auburn and Ryde councils could mean the end of free parking for residents of Holroyd. Clr Cummings warns that timed, paid parking meters could be in-troduced to the area if the State Government proceeds with threats to force amalgamations. Seems Holroyd residents agree. A recent council survey showed that 98 per cent of respondents were opposed to amalgamation. Holroyd residents know when they are on to a good thing - with a less frenetic yet com-prehensive shopping precinct, best enjoyed with free parking. Th ere is anecdotal evidence that people bypass Parramatt a for shopping to come to Merrylands, fed up with having to pay for timed parking. Th e Government has been off ering cash incentives for councils that merge voluntarily but have made noises about forcing amalgamations. Apart from the park-ing issue, Clr Cummings reckons that valued community services such as Meals on Wheels and free immunisation would be doomed. “While Holroyd continues to provide our young families with free immunisation for children, there are no such services in Par-ramatt a and Auburn,” Clr Cummings said. “If these council services change, are scaled back or are removed, we estimate up to 400 jobs could be lost from the Holroyd area, 150 alone from our childcare services.” Clr Cummings said a new council could be based at Parramat-ta, rather than Merrylands. And where would everyone park?

Residential high rise in HillsIT is inevitable that high and medium

rise developments crop up around railway stations - so Castle Hill residents had bett er prepare themselves when the North West Rail Link is operational. Th e Hills Council’s plan for residential development in the town centre to accommodate an additional 6000 residents will soon be on public exhibition. Th e area north of astle Hill Rd and Old Northern Rd is set to have three-storey townhouses and residential fl at buildings ranging from four to 20 storeys. Th e taller developments will be at the edge of the town centre and, from there, the height of buildings will gradually drop. An important part of the precinct plan is to have enough recreational and green space. Deputy Mayor Michelle Byrne said she agreed with the concept of having the taller developments closer to the town centre.

Lots of money in pizzasTHERE’S a lot of money to be made out

of pizzas it seems with the palatial Glenhaven home of Italian restaurant supremo Frank Criniti fetching $9 million when it was sold recently. Needless to say, it was a record for the area. Th e magnifi cent resort style acre-age, known as “Petalinda’’, had been on the market for just one month. Th e luxurious six-bedroom residence in Gilmour Close has a stunning list of features, including a security system that uses fi ngerprint scanning technol-ogy and a 23m indoor pool. It also boasts a 14-person sauna, championship-size tennis court and gymnasium. Bought in 2011 for $5.6 million, the Crinitis spent another cool $2 mill on renovations at the 2ha property. Th e sale, to a buyer from nearby West Pennant Hills, also includes some Gucci and Hermes furniture and a $120,000 wine cellar. As if he was not successful enough, with a string of Sydney restaurants including one in Th e Piazza in Castle Towers, Mr Criniti is relocat-ing overseas with his young family to expand their successful chain of Italian restaurants. Mama mia!

Spread of community banksIN recent years, community banks have

cropped up all over Sydney, with inves-tors feeling they have more control of their money. Following on the success of the Galston and District Community Bank, founded 12 years ago, a group of busi-ness leaders in the Hills will launch one at Norwest. Th e Norwest Community Bank, which is expected to open in the second half of next year, will direct profi ts via grants to sporting and community groups in the Hills. It will be a branch of the Bendigo Bank, which has 17 community banks in Sydney that have contributed $8 million via grants to their communities. Last year the Galston branch of the Bendigo Bank shared just under $300,000 in profi ts to projects such as men’s sheds, sports groups and schools. Branch manager Gary Mangan said that since June 2008 it had given $1.792 million to its community through 630 sponsorships and donations. John Mason, chairman of the volunteer steering committ ee for Norwest Community Bank, is seeking pledges. “No money is required at this stage and there are no signatures required – just an indicative pledge of support,” Mr Mason, the former chairman of Sydney Hills Business Chamber and Hills School Industry Partnership, said. Th e pledge could be investing in a small parcel of shares in the Norwest Community Bank branch (from $500 to $5000) or pledg-ing to transfer some or all of your banking business to the community bank. “We are halfway towards the targeted number of pledges we need to get the branch off the ground, but we need community support to get it over the line,” Mr Mason said. Th e community bank will off er all the services of the major banks, with perhaps more friendli-ness and personalised service. I’m in favour of moving some of the power away from Th e Big Four.

A true university cityEXCITING developments on the

horizon for the Greater West in 2015, with major plans from all councils, and the lat-est Metropolitan Sydney Strategy driving the future with jobs, housing and busi-ness growth. For Parramatt a, moving the Centenary Square development along, with some healthy business interest, is a priority. For Sydney’s “dual CBD”, there will be an invigorated business centre, driven in large part by the future UWS CBD campus. With the announcement that Charter Hall Group that two of its managed funds are putt ing up the dosh for the campus building in Mac-quarie St, we can see Parramatt a truly be-coming a university city. Lord Mayor Scott Lloyd, said commencement of the project with Leighton Properties and Charter Hall was a major achievement in the develop-ment of Parramatt a Square. He said the 14-level A grade building was a world-class urban renewal project and further evidence of the future growth in value of commercial property in Parramatt a. “We are delighted

that another blue-chip Australian company has shown such a strong commitment to the future of Parramatt a and the development of its key commercial precinct, Parramatt a Square. We would like to congratulate Leighton Properties and Charter Hall on their deal and thank them for their invest-ment in our city.” Construction is expected to be completed in late 2016 for the fi rst semester of university in early 2017. Th ere already is a UWS presence in the CBD, as well as city campuses for University of New England and Charles Sturt University. Th ere can be no bett er way to invigorate a CBD night-life than having young people studying in the hub. Restaurants and bar managers have told me how the increased presence of young students has helped to bring Parramatt a alive at night, along with the many residents moving into the CBD. Looking forward to having more Centenary Square developments confi rmed. Espe-cially waiting for confi rmation of the “open secret” of a major bank taking up a slab of the Square.

Artist impression of the new Parramatta UWS centre.

7WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

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Councils campaign to raise a wareness about asbestos

RESIDENTS

PARRAMATTA, Holroyd, Fairfield, Black-town, The Hills, Liverpool, Penrith and Hawkesbury have joined forces with the En-vironment Protection Authority to fight the

ever-growing problem of illegal asbestos disposal.Th e Western Sydney Residential Asbestos

Disposal Scheme (WSRA DS) is a 12-month pilot program to raise awareness and off er rebates for asbestos disposal.

Parramatt a Lord Mayor Scott Lloyd said he encouraged all western Sydney residents to take advantage of the WSRA D scheme that off ers generous rebates to eligible residents to collect and dispose of household asbestos.

“It is imperative that we increase people’s knowledge about asbestos, raise awareness that asbestos products can be in any home built or renovated before 1987, where to fi nd it and how to manage it safely,” he said.

Residents will be able to dispose of up to fi ve tonnes of asbestos material during the pilot program and take advantage of reduced tipping fees, and additional rebates if using a licensed asbestos contractor.

Th e Environment Protection Authority’s Director of Waste and Resource Recovery, Steve Beaman said the scheme provides home-owners the opportunity to have their legacy asbestos waste removed safely by professionals.

“Many homeowners may have loose asbes-tos sheeting, such as fi bro, left in the backyard over many years known as legacy asbestos. Over time these pieces of sheeting can be-come britt le and may begin to break down,” Mr Beaman said.

“It is important for homeowners to dis-pose of any asbestos correctly and by a profes-sional to reduce any hazards.”

Contact your council for more details.

Floorspace shortfall may s tall Parramatt a growth

DEVELOPMENT

By Red Dwyer

CAN Parramatta find sufficient floorspace capacity by 2036 to accommodate the projected employment and housing growth?

A study, commissioned by Parramatt a City Council, found a shortfall of almost 660,000 square metres under a “trend” scenario of 27,000 additional jobs and 5000 addition dwellings.

Under a “high-growth’ scenario the short-fall was 1.8 million square metres.

Th e study, by SGS Economics & Plan-ning, noted Parramatt a is encountering major constraints within the CBD, on the one hand, and increasing competition outside the city’s boundaries, on the other, aff ecting the growth of the city.

Since 1968, Parramatt a has been identifi ed as Sydney’s second CBD: the major employ-ment and economic hub in Western Sydney.

However, problems within the city, such as, public transport access, congestion, calls for residential space in the CBD core and lack of large fl oor plates does not favour employ-ment growth.

Externally, an arc of the three business parks – Norwest, Macquarie Park. and Sydney Olympic Park/Rhodes – off ers large foot plates in campus-style accommodation and a range of amenities which “provide a compel-ling off er to potential tenants”, noted the study.

Consequently, these parks host a “sig-nifi cant concentration of employment and,

in particular, offi ce-based employment,” the study said.

“Macquarie Park, Norwest and Sydney Olympic Park have all experienced consider-able growth in offi ce fl oorspace in the last 10 years”.

Signifi cantly, Parramatt a with 690,000 square metres of offi ce development has been surpassed by Macquarie/North Ryde, with 850,000 square metres.

Parramatt a City Council, which has a strategy of maintaining the CBD core as an employment-only precinct, has been receiving planning proposals for residential develop-ment in the core.

Th e study recommended, among others, council should continue to exclude resi-dential development from the core or could implement a high threshold requirement for non-residential fl oorspace – a minimum of 20,000-30,000 square metres – to a mixed-use proposal.

Consideration, also, should be given to the potential to accommodate employment growth in other locations in the “Greater Central Parramatt a”, such as, Auto Alley, West-mead, Rydalmere, Camellia and Granville.

Council will place on public exhibition the Draft Parramatt a City Centre Planning Framework Study, prepared by Architicus, and the Draft Parramatt a CBD Planning Frame-work Economic Analysis, prepared by SGS Economics & Planning.

Demand is strong for large fl oorplate off er-ings but there is a lack of stock on the market, which can accommodate this, according to the latest Colliers Offi ce Market Report

“Th is has prevented Parramatt a from benefi ting from the state government’s stated decentralisation policy,”

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8 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

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Liverpool – from caterpillar to butt erfl yTRA NSFORMATION

By Anthony Stavrinos

LIVERPOOL fresh-faced Ned Mannoun may be one of Austra-lia’s youngest mayors at only 32, but he’s hardly put a foot wrong

in his mission to build a bigger and better city.

His solid performance at the halfway mark in his mayoral term has repaid the faith residents placed in him in 2012 when he was popularly-elected to the top job, reinforcing his political future as one of the Liberal Party’s rising stars.

And he can even get away with the occasional corny line when fronting the media, as he did recently on TV, spruiking plans for a major face-lift and rejuvenation of Liverpool’s CBD.

“We want to take Liverpool from being a caterpillar, into a butt erfl y; it’s a transformational change,” Cr Mannoun recently told the Nine Network, which in May also reported the same “major make-over” was coming, only this time there was a slick new ‘fl y over video’.

htt ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DZVFDHxxl0

Liverpool City Council is look-ing to invest more than $15 million to transform the city centre into a place that that will encourage busi-

ness to invest and people to visit.Th e transformation begins

with fi ve key revitalisation projects, including establishment of a “city nerve centre” connecting to shops, transport and services within the CBD the 5,000 people working in - and thousands visiting - one of Australia’s largest health and medical precincts,.

A ‘City Eat Street’ will liven the southern end of the CBD with restaurants, coff ee shops and nightlife catering to all ages, tastes and budgets, while a revitalised ‘Macquarie Mall’ will form a vibrant hub showcasing and connecting a diverse mix of nearby shops.

New ‘Urban Breathing Spaces’ will connect the CBD to the Georges River and transform Bigge Park into an integrated public rec-reational space while more defi ned ‘Gateways’ will serve as entry points into the CBD.

“Residents won’t be hit up for this,” explains Cr Mannoun, who says special levy on business inter-ests collects $1.5m per year which is reserved in a special fund for these types of projects..

“It’s only the commercial prop-erty owners and the developers who are building this.”

Council in September, al-located $1million from the Town Improvement Fund (TIF) towards further work to bring three projects - revitalisation of Macquarie Mall and Bigge Park and a transformation

of key gateways - to implementation stage.

“Building Our New City is pro-gressing well,” Cr Mannoun says.

“From our fi rst consultations with business and community about the need to prepare our city for fu-ture growth, to working closely with the NSW Architect’s Offi ce and urban designers, through to (Coun-cil’s) decision to take three projects to the next stage, we are well on our way to transforming our city.”

Of course, the spectacular rise of Liverpool as a key commercial and residential centre has not come about solely because of the enthusi-asm and hard work of Cr Mannoun.

Th ere is some long term trans-port planning that has come to early fruition, reinvigorated action by the local business community and its leaders and developers are propos-ing new buildings that will change the way people perceive Liverpool and entice them to visit in larger numbers.

But it is the new Badgery’s Creek Airport, in Liverpool’s LGA that will supercharge its econominc fortunes.

According to a Deloitt e study, prepared for the NSW Business Chamber, the new airport will tip between $9.2 billion and $15.6 bil-lion into Western Sydney’s economy between 2020 and 2050 and over the same period between $15.7 billion and $25.6 billion into the economy for the whole of Sydney.

htt p://www2.deloitt e.com/

au/en/pages/economics/articles/economic-impact-western-sydney-airport.html

Liverpool is the biggest winner, with nearly 16,000 jobs to be cre-ated generating incomes totalling close to $5 billion.

And with the tidal wave of eco-nomic benefi ts, the long-serving president of Liverpool Chamber of Commerce – the man they call “Mr Liverpool” – Harry Hunt believes it’s more important than

ever for local business to have a strong voice.

In February this year he was re-elected for his 11th straight term and publicly acknowledged there had been criticism around that time and he’s since gone about addressing the issue.

“Th e transformation of Liver-pool into a major regional city for South West Sydney is becoming

Continued on page 9

Driving force: Ned Mannoun.

9WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

increasingly more evident as cranes dominate the Liverpool CBD land-scape,” Hunt says.

“Within two years there will be an additional 2,000 residents in the Liverpool CBD alone. By mid-2030, one in every 2 residents in Sydney will live in Sydney’s West.”

Hunt has been a member of Th e Western Sydney Airport Alliance since its inception and says he’s pleased its eff orts have driven for-ward the development of a western Sydney airport at Badgery’s Creek.

Alliance members have always

believed a major employment catalyst was needed in western Sydney to increase the number of job opportunities and improve the work-life balance of the regions two million residents.

“Th e need for a strong voice for the Liverpool business community has never been more important and we have been making changes to accommodate the new demands placed on our Chamber,” Hunt says.

“We will be increasing the Executive to eleven Board members to enable greater member participa-tion to bett er serve our business community.

“We are strengthening our partnerships with government at all levels. We are growing the Chamber with concerted eff orts to increase our visibility within the business community.”

Hunt says membership numbers have been increasing at unprec-edented rates, as more and more businesses realise that Liverpool needs a united voice to drive infrastructure developments critical to ensuring business in Liverpool receives maximum benefi ts.

In another boost to the area, the NSW Government recently announced the new 11.4km South

West Rail Link between Glenfi eld and Leppington had been complet-ed ahead of schedule and under-budget. It includes two new stations, Leppington and Edmonson Park.

It will provide a crucial link to Badgery’s Creek Airport in the fu-ture, when the line is extended from Leppington. Th e NSW Government has protected this transport corridor among 19 that have been identifi ed across Sydney to allow the expan-sion of the rail network to service expected growth areas.

Now Liverpool Council wants the NSW Government to bring the city’s existing rail connection with

the Sydney CBD “up to speed” because it took 50 minutes to com-mute from Liverpool station to Central.

At a December meeting of Liv-erpool Council a motion was passed to lobby the NSW Government for a new express service between Liverpool and Central.

Councillor Mazhar Hadid said that it took more than 50 minutes to commute from Liverpool station to Central.

Th e motion included plans by Liverpool Council to circulate a petition advocating for the express train service.

Continued from page 8

500 metre Rail bridge over Cowpasture Roadand Sydney water supply canal

Rail bridge overCampbelltown Road

Rail bridge over Camden Valley Way

Rail tunnel under Hume Highway

Glenfield South Substation

Image is indicative only

Rossmore train stabling facility: will provide train stabling (parking) facilities for the network. The facility will be able to accommodate 20 eight-car train sets.

Image is indicative only New Edmondson Park Station: will include 400 commuter car parking spaces and a street-level concourse and transport interchange. Glenfield multi-storey commuter car park:

was opened in September 2010. The new facility provides 730 free, untimed commuter parking spaces. It also includes lifts, CCTV and security lighting. The design of the car park’s external panels incorporates community feedback.

Glenfield Junction Northern Flyover: will carry the new East Hills track over the existing South Line. Construction of the flyover commenced in June 2010.

Image isImage isImage isImage isImage isImage isg indi atindicatindicatindicatindicatindicati e onlive onlyive onlyive onlyive onlyive onlyyti e oe ononlyyaatatatattii

New Leppington Station: will include 850 commuter car parking spaces. The new station will also include lifts and a street-level concourse and transport interchange.

Image is indicative only

Glenfield Junction Southern Flyover: will connect the new rail line to the existing network, carrying it over the South Line and Southern Sydney Freight Line. Construction of the flyover in the rail corridor commenced in June 2010.

Glenfield Transport Interchange and Glenfield Station: opened to the community on Sunday 23 September 2012.

Seddon Park commuter car park: was opened in October 2009. The extended car park provides 112 free, untimed commuter parking spaces.

South West Rail Link

10 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

7 easy steps to declutt ering …and profi ting from itAS you move forward into the New Year and your resolutions, let go of what’s holding you back. Here’s how to get rid of your clutter - and profit from it.

RESOLUTIONS

By Laura Shin

As you start the New Year, you’re prob-ably making resolutions and other plans for your fresh, clean slate.

What if you challenged yourself to make 2014 your best year yet? As outlined in these seven steps to living your dream life, this is just what Betsy and Warren Talbot did when, in 2008, they decided to spend the rest of their lives traveling.

Aft er two years of selling almost every-thing they owned and saving with a single-minded focus, they embarked on a worldwide trip without end. Th irty-some countries, three books and thousands of readers later, the Talbots, publishers of Married With Luggage, are living their dream life.

Among the many steps they took, one key was declutt ering — and not just for the purpose of having a tidier or bett er organized home. “Clutt er gets in the way of being able to see the life you want,” says Warren. “It ties you down to what you’re doing now, and it’s diffi cult to see and envision the life you want when you’re surround by all the things about the life you have now.”

If you really want to make some changes to pursue a goal, one secret to gett ing there will be to let go of everything standing in the way. Plus, you could earn some extra cash that way. Here’s how to do it right.

1. Figure out why you want to declutter.

Don’t declutt er simply because you think you should. Tie it to a personal goal you have to change an aspect of your life — whether it’s because you want to move, get out of a particular living arrangement, start a business or something else entirely. “Imagine how you want your home to function, so you can see how to declutt er it,” says Betsy. You may want to park your car in the garage again, or to be able to peacefully read your newspaper in the living room without other things distracting you.

2. Determine why you tend to clutter.

Th e Talbots say people with clutt er fall into three personality types: “the storekeeper, the person who keeps things because they might need it someday; the romantic, who holds onto everything for sentimental value; and the Pollyana, who takes in every broken, mismatched thing because one day they’re go-ing to fi x it and it’s going to be fabulous,” says Betsy. If you’re a storekeeper, if you end up not using something in a set period of time, it needs to go. Romantics, ask yourself whether your memories or relationships would go away if the items did, and remember that they

exist whether you have a reminder or not. Pollyannas should put a deadline on revitaliza-tion projects — if you don’t repair something within a certain timeframe, out it goes.

3. Identify the items you’d like to get rid of.

Now for the fun part. Be smart about how you choose what gets the boot.

For the kitchen: Get a big box, and put all your utensils in it. Whenever you need an item, pull it out of the box and put it back in your kitchen. Aft er two months, toss anything you haven’t used. (More on what to do with your discards in a second.)

For your closet: Turn everything in your closet backward on your hanger. As you wear each item, hang it back up face forward. Aft er three months (for the clothing for each sea-son), anything still facing backward is now one of your castoff s.

For your bathroom: Any outdated medicines should go. Same with dried up, old makeup. Use the kitchen box trick here, and discard whatever you don’t use in a month, but give medicines a few more months.

For your living room: Decide how you want to use the room. If you want to use it to watch movies, keep relevant items. If you want to use it to read and play games, keep your books and the games. But if you have games left over from when your kids were young but no one uses them anymore, then it’s time to fi nd them a new home.

4. Set up your staging area.As you start to collect stuff on the outs,

put them in a designated location. “It should be a place that you see on your way in and out of your home, so it becomes a motivation to get it out of there, and you can see progress as those things leave your home,” says Warren. Th is spot is now your “staging area,” and any-

thing here needs to fi nd a new home — just not in your home. As you start selling, people who come by to pick up items may fi nd some-thing else they’re interested in buying off you.

5. Start selling.Declutt ering is a big job. As you start to

collect your unused, unnecessary items, start with the more valuable items to get your mo-mentum going. “If you’re going to sell items, it’s nice to sell one quickly so you can start making money from your junk,” says Warren. Th is could also help you get started on your goal, if, for instance, part of the reason you want to declutt er is to start your own business, put the proceeds toward that venture. Or, if your goal is to entertain more, use it to host a dinner party.

Identify your most valuable items, and fi gure out whether it makes the most sense to sell them via eBay or another website or outlet. Designer clothing can do quite well on eBay and at consignment shops. Th e disadvantage for potential shoppers on eBay is that they won’t be able to try on the item fi rst while, for you, a consignment shop will give you a much smaller audience for your items, though that group might be more likely to buy since they can try the item fi rst.

Online selling is especially appropriate for large items, like furniture, for which shipping could be an issue and which the buyer will likely want to see in person fi rst, though a consignment shop is best for vintage furniture items that could earn a higher price.

To sell on sites like eBay, “Th e key is in having a system,” says Betsy. “Clean it up, photograph it well, write an engaging ad, and price it competitively.”

When all else fails, have a good, old-fashioned stoop, garage or yard sale — just be prepared to get a lot less for your wares, and take whatever you can get.

6. Donate or recycle the rest.For anything un-sellable, fi nd out where

you can recycle or donate the item. With donations to places like the Salvation Army, you can also take a tax deduction if you itemize.

Put out the call on social media: “Th ere’s always someone in a state of transition in their life, whether it’s someone going to school or who has a kid going to college, someone just gett ing divorced, someone just gett ing married. Th ose people are always interested in things you might have, so it’s important to put a note on Facebook,” says Betsy.

Donate unwanted, unused toiletries to women’s shelters. Meanwhile, unsold elec-tronics and batt eries should be recycled so as to keep their toxins out of landfi lls.

“You want to do as much as you can to keep it out of landfi lls,” says Warren, so once your other options have been exhausted, you can put it in the trash.

7. Keep yourself decluttered.If you’ve done a big push but still think

you could streamline more, get rid of one thing a day. “If you do that, you’ll be at least 365 items lighter by the end of the year,” says Betsy.

But once you’re happily more minimal, follow the self-explanatory “one thing in, one thing out” rule. While this is obviously use-ful to the Talbots since they live out of their backpacks, it can also help anyone who has just declutt ered stick keep themselves from accumulating more things — keeping your home light, and your bank account plump.

Laura Shin is the author of “The Millennial Game Plan: Career And Money Secrets To Succeed In Today’s World.” This article originally appeared on Forbes.com.

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New business committeePARRA MATT A City Council has estab-

lished an International Business and Invest-ment committ ee. Its aims include promotion and facilitation of international businesses and investments in Parramatt a; help local busi-nesses to explore international opportunities;

and the promotion of international economic and cultural partnerships. Th e committ ee will work closely with Council’s economic devel-opment team.

New dean at uniPROFESSOR H Patrick McNeil has been

appointed inaugural executive dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, at Macquarie University. He commenced his role on November 3.

MOU signedPARRA MATT A City Council and Syd-

ney Water have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work together on initiatives such as improving the water quality of Parramatt a River and planning future water needs. 

$30 million grantBLACKTOWN and Penrith councils will

receive a combined total of almost $30 million

this fi nancial year as part of the federal govern-ment’s Financial Assistance Grant program. Blacktown will receive about $18.5 million and Penrith, just over $11 million. Th e money will be used for general purposes and spent on local roads.

CCTV at OatlandsCCTV will be installed in the Oatlands

Village shopping strip along Belmore Street East to improve safety and security for cus-tomers and retailers. Hills Shire Mayor Clr Andrew Jeff eries said that Council would fund and install the CCTV cameras in response to calls and concerns raised at a community forum hosted by Parramatt a MP, Geoff Lee.

Penrith in on roundtablePENRITH Mayor Ross Fowler OAM participated in a round table discussion with stake-

holders from the tourism industry across Western Sydney recently. Th e meeting, to discuss a Western Sydney Tourism & Events Strategy, was organised by the Western Sydney Busi-ness Chamber and the Tourism and Transport Forum. Th e State Government is delivering $500,000 over two years to develop a Western Sydney Tourism & Events Strategy.

Congratulations AnthonyHILLS Council has congratulated Anthony Moss (pictured below) on being elected to

the role of Chairman of the Sydney Hills Business Chamber. Mayor Jeff eries said that Mr Moss will be a great ambassador for Th e Hills business community. “Anthony Moss has been a very active Chamber board member for some time and will bring a great deal of enthusiasm to the role,” Mayor Jeff eries said. Mr Moss replaces outgoing Chairman Tony Eades.

Stuart Ayres with The Deputy Premier, Andrew Stoner and Penrith Mayor Ross Fowler OAM at the Western Sydney Tourism round table discussion.

12 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Reading the tea leaves for SMEs in 2015FORECAST

By John BurkeCondon Associates

TRYING to understand economic analysis of trends and predictions can be confus-ing but as the mist of confusion clears these can be useful tools in your business

planning for 2015 and beyond. The challenge is to determine what impacts upon your busi-ness.

We talk about small businesses here, (less than 20 employees) because there has been a steady decrease in the number of medium sized businesses (20 – 200 employees) over recent years according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Count of Australian Busi-nesses.

A declining value in the Australian dol-lar to the US dollar will favour exporters in contrast to importers and retailers who sell imported goods. A lower Australian dollar favours the education and tourism sectors.

An increase in demand for goods from Australia’s major trading partners such as China will increase demand for our major exports such as iron ore puts upward pressure on the Australian dollar.

A useful research tool is the Reserve Bank’s quarterly Statement on Economic Policy published February, May, August and November each year. Th is includes a section on Economic Outlook. It is freely available on the RBA’s website.

Th e Australian terms of trade are expected to trend down by approximately 4% during

2015 with a fl att ening out in mid to late 2015. Th e terms of trade can be described as the amount of imported goods an economy can purchase per unit of exported goods.

Th is downward trend in terms of trade is in large part owing to weaker-than-expected commodity prices, particularly for iron ore. Th is should be marginally off set by the ef-fect of falling oil prices on import prices.

In China, the GDP growth in 2015 and 2016 is expected to trend gradually lower refl ecting factors such as the declining working-age population. Th e US economy is likely to show continued steady growth.

Domestically, the available indicators suggest that GDP growth will remained moderate. Growth of resource exports and non-mining activity is likely to have been off set by a further decline in mining invest-ment.

Th ere is likely to be a moderate growth of consumption and measures of business conditions and confi dence are likely to be close to their long-run averages.

Conditions in the housing market are consistent with strong growth in dwelling investment.

Th e non-residential building sector should support investment in the near term; however forward-looking indicators, such as non-residential building approvals, have weakened over the course of 2014, implying that there is likely to be less growth in the non-residential building sector.

Th ere will be a decline in mining invest-ment. Th is will have an adverse impact on those businesses involved with the supply of goods and services for building mining infrastructure.

GDP growth is expected to slow over 2014/15, before picking up to previous levels of growth over 2015/16.

Th e depreciating exchange rate for the Australian dollar has, to a large extent, off set the declining terms of trade.

Th e latt er tends to be contractionary for the economy because the lower prices received for exports adversely impact national income and expenditure.

An exchange rate decline is expansionary because it increases export incomes in Austra-lian dollar terms and increases import prices, which causes households and businesses to substitute towards domestically produced goods and services, where those goods and services can be produced domestically.

Household consumption is expected to pick up gradually. Th e forecasts envisage that consumption will grow by more than income, implying a further gradual decline in the sav-ings.

Th is is consistent with constraints on wages growth and an aging population that

will increasingly rely on retirement savings to supplement income.

So if you are retail, don’t automatically expect growth, especially in the long term. You will have to continue to deal with cost pres-sures if you are relying on imported goods.

Dwelling investment is expected to increase at an above-average pace. Dwelling investment is being supported by low interest rates, strong population growth and relatively low rates of construction over the past decade.

Th ose involved with construction in the housing sector should take advantage of the opportunities, while those involved in the non-residential construction sector should prepare for a slowing in activity.

Th e unemployment rate is expected to be the same for some time. Wage growth is expected to remain low especially with pres-sure on public and private sector employers to contain costs. Labour productivity is expected to grow. Combined, these forces should mean that unit labour costs will remain well contained.

Th ose businesses with labour being a large proportion of their costs, such as in the service sector, should take this opportunity of low wage growth to improve the training and qual-ity of their existing staff teams who are likely to be stable in the medium term.

Infl ation will remain the same. Th is is due to lower wages pressure, reduced government expenditure, (demand), and lower crude oil prices.

On the other hand, pressure will come from the higher costs of imported goods, including many retail items, due to the lower exchange rate. Pressure will also come from the housing market.

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HANDS OFF

HOLROYDThe Baird Government wants to merge Holroyd

Council with Auburn, Parramatta and one third of Ryde Councils. This is bad news for

our community.

You can do something about it!Send a message to the Baird Government.

Tell your friends and family to support the Hands off Holroyd social media campaign,

sign our petition and attend the community meetings in 2015.

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14 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

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15WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Mr Baird: Hands Off Holroyd! LGA MERGER

By CLR Greg CummingsMayor Holroyd City Council

HOLROYD City Council has proudly represented its community for over 140 years.

As Holroyd has grown, Council’s wide range of services and infrastructure has expanded accordingly, to continually meet the needs of our ratepayers and business owners.

You might remember back in mid-2014, the Holroyd community agreed to a special rate variation (SRV) to allow Council to ensure it can continue to maintain and renew our existing infrastructure whilst our Section 94 Infrastructure Plan has been put in place to support growing areas.

Holroyd’s new Local Environmental Plan (LEP) and Development Control Plan (DCP) have been developed to increase growth opportunities and investment into the area and we are surging ahead to become a progressive place to invest, live and play in Western Sydney.

If trends continue, the increase in value of developments from 2012/13 to 2014/15, which based on current projections will reach a total value of $1 billion in Develop-ment Applications received, will see an increase in development activity of approxi-mately 250%.

To support the rapid growth of our City, Council has approved the fast tracking of $45 million of essential infrastructure works that are essential for the increase in development activity to occur in a timely fashion.

Council is also fi nalising a comprehen-sive vision for the feel and structure of our streetscapes with the objective of bringing a vibrant contemporary look to our commu-nity spaces.

But aft er 140 proud years, Holroyd could be literally wiped off the map by the Baird Government, which seems fully-intent on amalgamating the State’s councils.

As a result, Holroyd could be forced to merge with Auburn, Parramatt a and a third of Ryde.

Th e State Government proposals for local councils under the ‘Fit for the Future’ cam-paign can be found at their website at www.fi tforthefuture.nsw.gov.au.

Holroyd now has six months to outline to Premier Baird and Local Government Minister Paul Toole why we should remain our own entity, in 500 words or less.

Th at means explaining 140 years of his-tory and commitment to our community in 500 words, explaining how ‘local’ is more effi cient than a bureaucracy and explaining how we plan to continue to provide for our community over the next four years.

All of this, in just 500 words. As Mayor, I am increasingly concerned about the impacts a forced merger will have on Holroyd’s ev-eryday services, programs and infrastructure, at a time when the community continues to grow.

Merging Holroyd is just bad news for everyone living and working in the area.

Residents and businesses could be hit with increases in rates, businesses with high-er fees and charges and paid parking could be introduced across our suburbs, putt ing an end to free on-street parking across Holroyd.

A long list of crucial services, includ-

ing our free Immunisation Programs for Children, Childcare, Aged and Disability Services, Out of School Hours programs (OOSH), and Home Library Services, could all change – for the worst.

And if Council services are scrapped, the result is that we could lose up to 400 local jobs throughout Holroyd.

Th e new ‘mega’ Council will be based in Parramatt a or Ryde instead of right here in Merrylands – and that will mean longer de-lays for ratepayers and business owners when dealing with Council related issues.

Th at’s why we are urging our ratepayers and local businesses to join together in the fi ght against our forced amalgamation.

So far, more than 7,200 people have jumped online or signed our Anti-Amalgamation petitions in support.

We all know that Holroyd is sustainable and fi nancially fi t for the future. Our message to Mr Baird is loud and clear: Hands off Holroyd!

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Collaborative approach to drive growthTHE PLAN

By Clr Scott LoydLord Mayor of Parramatta

THIS year is set to be another exciting one for Parramatta as we continue to work to-wards Building Australia’s Next Great City.

Th ere are many projects already underway that are set to transform Parramatt a into a world class CBD.

In 2015 building will start on the fi rst development of Parramatt a Square PS1, which will be home to 10,000 University of Western Sydney students.

Parramatt a Square is Council’s $2 billion urban renewal project and will be a vibrant mixed-use hub with high quality commercial and residential development and innovative public domain space across three hectares in the middle of our CBD.

We are receiving plenty of interest on Parramatt a Square and we hope to have more positive news as the year progresses.

At the end of last year the NSW Govern-ment made some major announcements as part of its metropolitan strategy, A Plan for Growing Sydney.

Th e plan highlights Parramatt a’s key role in providing the homes, jobs and businesses of the future.

NSW Planning Minister Pru Goward came to Parramatt a to launch the plan, which confi rms Parramatt a CBD’s status as Sydney’s second CBD.

Th is approach is consistent with our Council’s vision for growth with initiatives such as Parramatt a Square, activation of the

riverfront and creating a new commercial precinct in Auto Alley.

Th e strategy details how our CBD has the potential to reach 100,000 jobs in the next 20 years and that Greater Parramatt a including Westmead, Parramatt a North, Rydalmere and Camellia, will become one of the key Strategic Centres for Sydney.

Our Council will work closely with the Government to drive investment and growth in areas such as medical research, education, innovation and technology, bringing the jobs of the future to Parramatt a.

Th e strategy also focused on further devel-opment of the area between Parramatt a and Sydney Olympic Park, and outlined the inten-tion to further develop the Camellia precinct.

Th is year we will also be analysing feed-back received from the public exhibition of our three key City Strategy documents, which cover the Parramatt a River Foreshore, Auto Alley and the CBD Planning Framework.

Part of our CBD planning framework in-cludes a proposal to remove height limits from CBD buildings. In the NSW Government’s

metropolitan strategy they commit to working with Council to review expansion opportuni-ties in our CBD including updated building height controls.

Th ese are all extremely positive announce-ments for Parramatt a and we look forward to driving more investment into our great City during 2015 and beyond.

NSW Planning Minister Pru Goward MP, Lord Mayor Cr Scott Lloyd and Member for Parramatta Dr Geoff Lee MP.

“Approach is consistent with

our vision.”

17WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Parramatt a now Capital of Western SydneyTHE REGION

By Geoff LeeState Member for Parramatta

IT’S official, Parramatta is the “Capital of Western Sydney” and Sydney’s second CBD.

Last month the Minister for Planning, Pru Goward released a “Plan for Growing

Sydney” – a 20 year plan to shape our global city.

Th e plan positions NSW to take advantage of growing opportunities from Asia – with Asia expected to account for half of global economic output within the next decade.

Th is plan also provides the framework necessary to deliver more jobs and acceler-ate housing supply so that we can both meet future demand and drive NSW’s economic prosperity.

Today, Western Sydney is home to 47 per cent of Sydney’s residents and only 36 per cent of the jobs while Sydney CBD has 10 times more jobs than other centres – as a result every morning 200,000 people in Western Sydney wake up and travel into Sydney’s CBD to work.

Th ey end up spending hours stuck in cars, buses or trains. Today congestion costs Sydney around $5 billion per annum and is expected to grow to $8 billion by 2020 if we do nothing.

Th e plan identifi es priority growth areas - Greater Parramatt a to the Olympic Peninsula in a series of connected specialist precincts.

Th e health precinct at Westmead will grow from 16,000 jobs to 25,000 in 20 years. Last week the Minister for Health Jillian Skinner announced the start of an estimated $1 billion

upgrade for Westmead Hospital, the largest upgrade for the hospital in 35 years.

Th e Parramatt a Heritage Precinct will generate 2,000 jobs and 6,000 homes through the transformation of government lands into a vibrant mixed-use precinct.

Close to $100 million will be invested to restore and adaptively re-use the heritage buildings in the precinct, making it a place that not only rivals the Rocks, but is bigger and bett er.

Greater Parramatt a will grow to 100,000 jobs over the next 20 years making it the fi nan-cial, banking and professional services centre

for Western Sydney. Rydalmere education precinct will be

expanded to recognise the important role of the University of Western Sydney in tertiary education and research.

Th e Camellia Precinct will be transformed from an industrial wasteland to a waterfront living. As a long-time advocate for its redevel-opment I am encouraged by the Minister’s an-nouncement of $900,000 to start the planning of the new Camellia.

Located just 2.5km from Parramatt a CBD, the precinct off ers substantial opportunities for remediation and redevelopment follow-

ing the closure of the Shell refi nery to create upwards of 30,000 jobs and 30,000 homes.

A new arts, culture and entertainment precinct will be developed in Parramatt a. Th is will have the Powerhouse Museum as its anchor tenant and create space for local artists.

Th e relocation of the Powerhouse will meet increasing demand for more convenient-ly located entertainment and artistic options in Parramatt a and be a catalyst for further arts growth in Western Sydney.

Parramatt a has also been selected as a Green Grid pilot to connect open spaces, strategic parks and pedestrian and bike paths. Th is will provide signifi cant benefi ts in mak-ing Parramatt a a vibrant city.

Th e $1 billion investment in Parramatt a’s light rail will not only improve commute times, light rail will shape Parramatt a City and surrounding suburbs. New urban infi ll sites like the Parramatt a Heritage Precinct and Camellia will be transformed into modern vibrant communities.

Light rail will link the growing population centres with employment, sport and educa-tion centres to alleviate congestion on our roads.

Overseeing the implementation of this plan will be the Greater Sydney Commis-sion – a new government body that will bring together and coordinate across the many key stakeholders including, local government, pri-vate sector and community and state govern-ment agencies.

For far too long Western Sydney and Par-ramatt a have been ignored – this plan, in con-junction with the NSW Government’s Long Term Transport Master Plan and Rebuilding NSW lays out a clear road map for building Western Sydney’s international competitive-ness and future economic success.

Parramatta CBD is the focus of developments.

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18 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

How apps can solve traffi c time problems

HACKA THON

By Kate HillPartner Deloitte Private

WHEN the self-employed are asked what the attraction of working from home is, their first answer is often “Not having to cope with rush hour

traffic”. Th is answer – while only one of many,

is a telling hint to one of business life’s most frustrating problems: losing time.

Business owners are always struggling to fi nd more time to run their business. Whether they are stuck on back-offi ce work when they would rather be mapping out a growth strat-egy for the next six months, or sitt ing in heavy traffi c morning and night, the race against time is a common problem we all face.

Oft en, the struggle through road traffi c is the most infuriating demand on our time, and the one over which we have the least control. No-one has the capability to empty the roads at will.

And it is likely to worsen. Th e daily traffi c numbers are expected to rise as WestConnex completes the toll road network in Sydney.

Traffi c is continuing to rise on the M4, while more motorists from growth areas in Western Sydney are using toll roads to get to and from work in the city.

Th ere are 1.6 million residents in Western Sydney, and nearly half a million more are expected to fl ood into the area in the medium term.

According to the University of Western Sydney, the population in Greater Western Sydney will exceed 2.3 million by 2026.

More workers, and larger businesses, are expected to fl ood into Western Sydney as well. Over 300,000 jobs will be created across Greater Western Sydney in the next 30 years.

All this growth will put enormous pressure on Western Sydney’s road network. In this situation, business owners can only try to deal with the inconvenience as best they can. For some, that may be choosing to work from home when it becomes diffi cult to head into the offi ce.

However, for those who must head into the offi ce, technology and improving smartphone apps may provide the answer to improved travel times.

Transport for NSW, aware of the problem

of increasing traffi c, are working together with Deloitt e to support app developers who can develop the next generation of apps for NSW road users.

Eight teams from the successful Code-works Hackathon will design apps that can help business owners save time on road travel, lett ing them put more into their business.

Th ese app designs include concepts like selecting the best routes to avoid congestion and traffi c accidents, real-time road informa-tion for the public, optimised departure times and modes of transports for reduced travel

time, providing delivery drivers with a trip planning app, an app for car-pooling options, and providing transport options for quick and easy traffi c routes.

Deloitt e will provide the winners of the Hackathon with incubation support over the coming months, including mentoring and coaching around technical development and commercialisation.

Th is support includes expertise in data analytics, design, transport and digital tech-nologies.

Increasingly sophisticated technologies are allowing businesses to rethink their core processes and capabilities, and create more value for the business at a faster pace.

Cloud computing is simplifying back offi ce functions, while social media allows key stakeholders to connect more tightly, and communicate and collaborate faster and more easily.

Yet business owners should not forget the value of technology in solving one of their most basic and intractable problems: gett ing to work on time.

“According to the University

of Western Sydney, the

population in Greater

Western Sydney will exceed

2.3 million by 2026.”

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WHY FAILURE HAPPENS

We live in an era of overindulgence. While the media likes to turn the spotlight on our junk food and com-puter game–addicted youth, our

overindulgence is not confined to the physical (or lack thereof).

Today, our psychological lives are also characterised by relentless positivism and happiness delusions as we strive to create a perpetual mono-emotional state, such that we can never be truly sated.

One of the problems with our overin-dulgence in the positivity and hope fantasies touted by much of the self-help school is that they inform so many of our strategies in busi-ness, and in life for that matt er. Added to this is the fact that they’re not especially helpful if we want to achieve actual results.

Sure they’re entertaining and they temporarily make us feel good (selfh elp’s comparison with rock concerts is well earned: you leave on a high, buy the merchandise and a month later it’s all gathering dust). But the motivation industry’s almost religious status has convinced many of us to abandon our own cognitive processes and ‘follow our bliss’: trust the universe and invest in a cork-board! (It’s important to note at this point that there is a huge distinction between affi rmations and mental rehearsal.)

Consequently, great ideas, extraordinary teams, powerful organisations and some ex-ceptionally gift ed and talented individuals of-ten fail. Th is is principally because they haven’t even considered the possibility of failure, let alone designed an environment or processes that help them thrive in spite of it.

Worse, they come to blame themselves and process failure as a character trait rather than as simply another result, however unde-sired it may be.

For instance, if we were to suggest to you that you volunteer to be the test subject for a never before tested parachute design that we were really positive and fi st-pumpingly confi dent about, how readily would you give up the option of a reserve chute? Th e question is almost ridiculous, and yet this formula is repeated in offi ces, homes, schools and fi tness centres around the planet every day. In fact, rather than being the exception, it has become the strategic norm.

We have designed our world in such a way that only perfect execution can succeed … and just in case you haven’t taken a good look around recently, perfection is prett y rare.

Of course, there are a number of reasons for this. It is in our natures to err towards optimism. Hope is quite possibly the most powerful drug we have ever injected into our cerebellums and many of us have an addiction so acute that we will sacrifi ce almost every-thing to satisfy it.

Now we’re certainly not suggesting that optimism underscored with eff ort is a bad thing — quite the contrary. What we’re talking about is the baseless optimism that dominates so much of our social commentary and leaves us impotent in the face of reality. More importantly, we’re asserting that one of the consequences of this kind of optimism is that we court failure by not accounting for it.

We act as if we are generous, bold and intelligent all the time, and as a result we adopt hope as a strategy. We shun criticism as pes-simism and at the fi rst sign of negativity, we put our fi ngers in our ears and note at this point that there is a huge distinction between affi rmations and mental rehearsal.)

Consequently, great ideas, extraordinary teams, powerful organisations and some exceptionally gift ed and talented individu-als oft en fail. Th is is principally because they haven’t even considered the possibility of failure, let alone designed an environment or processes that help them thrive in spite of it. Worse, they come to blame themselves and process failure as a character trait rather than as simply another result, however undesired it may be.

For instance, if we were to suggest to you that you volunteer to be the test subject for a never before tested parachute design that we were really positive and fi st-pumpingly confi dent about, how readily would you give up the option of a reserve chute? Th e question is almost ridiculous, and yet this formula is repeated in offi ces, homes, schools and fi tness centres around the planet every day. In fact, rather than being the exception, it has become the strategic norm.

We have designed our world in such a way that only perfect execution can succeed … and just in case you haven’t taken a good look around recently, perfection is prett y rare.

Of course, there are a number of reasons for this. It is in our natures to err towards opti-mism. Hope is quite possibly the most power-ful drug we have ever injected into our cer-ebellums and many of us have an addiction so acute that we will sacrifi ce almost everything to satisfy it. Now we’re certainly not suggest-ing that optimism underscored with eff ort is a bad thing — quite the contrary. What we’re talking about is the baseless optimism that dominates so much of our social commentary and leaves us impotent in the face of reality. More importantly, we’re asserting that one of the consequences of this kind of optimism is that we court failure by not accounting for it.

We act as if we are generous, bold and intelligent all the time, and as a result we adopt hope as a strategy. We shun criticism as pes-simism and at the fi rst sign of negativity, we put our fi ngers in our ears and chant, ‘I’m not listening, I’m not listening’. Or else, we double down on a positivity bender and cavort like an evangelical congregation reciting cheery affi rmations laced with doubt and despera-tion: ‘I am rich, thin and successful … I am a preciously unique snowfl ake fi lled with abundance’, and the like.

The truth is, we set ourselves up for failure

Children in modern life are, rather notori-ously, never allowed to experience anything remotely like failure (heaven forbid they miss out on a ‘pass the parcel’ prize). As a result, failure hits them hard

when real life refuses to grade them on a curve suspended over a padded fl oor with a loving acceptance of ‘their own special spell-ing’.

Of course it’s easy to pick on children and no-one will thank us for it, so let’s turn our att ention to the adult world. Th e same can be said of most corporate and government pro-cesses, business systems and self-management programs. Th e more you set strategy or design systems without a consciousness of even the possibility of failure, the greater the chance of realising that failure actually is. Diets — or ‘wellness programs’ as they have come to be euphemised — are famous for simultaneously promising the virtually impossible in record time, and for almost universally failing to provide lasting results. And yet, the more pre-posterous the claim and the more infl ated the possibility, the more these books, powders, audio-programs and reality television shows seem to sell.

What’s more concerning is that when we do eventually fail or backslide (the faith-based terminology is not coincidental), we end up blaming ourselves rather than the system we’ve bought into. We desperately self-fl agel-late as our internal dialogue runs to phrases such as, ‘I’m weak … I’m hopeless … I can’t do it …’ and so the cycle continues.

By ignoring the possibility of failure in our

thinking, we unwitt ingly increase the chances of it ultimately eventuating. Contrast this strat-egy with the design parameters of commercial aircraft . In 2012, while speaking at an interna-tional business summit in Bangkok, Th ailand, we struck up a conversation with another speaker, Richard de Crespigny. Richard is the Qantas pilot who successfully landed QF32, the Airbus A380 that, en route from Singapore to Sydney, experienced catastrophic engine failure causing an enormous hole in the wing (which, it is prett y well agreed by all fl ying experts, is rather a bad thing to happen!).

In a typically Australian, self-deprecating way, Richard is quick to defl ect credit for the safe arrival away from his skills as a pilot and onto his crew and his aircraft . But when you probe a litt le deeper into his story, you really do get a sense of just how ‘foolproof ’ the sys-tems built into the A380 actually are.

It turns out that all commercial aircraft are designed with the possibility that they may crash taken into consideration. And this stretches to considerably more than the life vest and its amazing light and whistle combi-nation (which no doubt is immensely reassur-ing as you bob up and down in the middle of a vast ocean). Failure, it turns out, is actually factored into the engineering.

In other words, when a system suff ers a serious failure, the plane will, in most cases, stay in the air. It is only in the very unlikely event of multiple system failures of signifi cant magnitude that you may really want to locate the nearest exit (if only to be sure of where holes in the plane are supposed to be).

But even this understates the over-engi-neering involved in the building of the A380 (given the successful landing of QF32, the term ‘over-engineering’ may be an overstate-ment in itself). According to de Crespigny’s account, the aircraft exceeded even his expec-tations and what most pilots would consider its baseline specifi cations. Th e plane simply refused to let a ridiculously long string of er-rors lead to complete failure.

So it appears that, when it comes to things where our lives are at stake (such as sitt ing in a metal chair at 9000 metres while travelling at 800 kilometres per hour) we start to get a litt le more realistic about our chances of suc-cess and in fact we improve those chances by preparing for the chance of failure. So how is it that we set ourselves up for failure?

Discipline is hard work As the sun rises on a crisp 1 January morn-

ing, those living in the Northern Hemisphere breathe out visible air in the cold as they step into a fresh new world rich with possibilities. Meanwhile those in the Southern Hemi-sphere, many of whom are already halfway

through the new day, bury their toes in the sand on sun-drenched beaches clutching Moleskines and pens with pages optimistically titled ‘New Year’s Resolutions’.

We may have partied hard over the holiday break but now it is time to get a grip on our lives — to make some ‘positive’ changes, rein in excesses and do a litt le exercise, maybe learn a language, be kinder to our livers and perhaps get back to playing the piano.

Th is is the kind of interior dialogue we all engage in as we usher in a new year (those in Asia no doubt think this is a ridiculous practice best left until the ‘real’ new year a few weeks later). And what bett er way to embrace these possibilities than to apply a litt le healthy discipline. Aft er all, surely that’s a good thing. It shows we’re willing to take responsibility for our lives and not passively allow life to simply dictate terms to us.

So we swear off alcohol, join a gym, go out and buy some appropriately stretchy fi tness att ire, throw out every can of soft drink and refi ll the refrigerator’s crisper tray with loads of fresh vegetables (where they will, of course, rot as they have all previous Januaries).

By February, we’re berating ourselves, ‘Why am I so undisciplined? Why can I not stick to anything? What is wrong with me?’ Th e answer is, ‘Nothing is wrong with you’, unless of course you consider being exqui-sitely human ‘wrong’. Yet, much of our culture, certainly the ‘self-improvement’ industry, asserts that what we are lacking is discipline. Th ey inform us that our att itudes need a tune up, that it’s all about our states of mind and that we should push ourselves to higher levels of self-control.

Th is, of course, is mostly nonsense. Many of those who espouse this herculean disci-pline, be they personal trainers, life coaches or ‘self-actualising consultants’, are just as undisciplined in other areas of their own lives. Consider the typical Boot Camp–owning physical trainers who scream at their clients as they torture them in public parks but are inca-pable of picking their children up from school on time or organising their receipts come tax time. It makes you wonder how they would respond to a rather feeble looking accountant standing over them and screaming, ‘You’re worthless and weak … look at your expense reports … you disgust me!’

Discipline, it seems, owes rather more to the hierarchy of our own personal values and internal fi lters than it does to any self-imposed directions running to the contrary. But does that mean we should all surrender to failure and simply give up? Well, yes and no. Th ere are certainly some things we should give up, such as strategies that don’t actually work (more on that later). But it would be wrong to see this as surrender. What it does indicate is that being successful in any sphere of life clearly comes down to quite a lot more than discipline, not in the least part because we don’t actually behave as predictably and ratio-nally as we think we do.

Human irrationalityIn the 1600s, French mathematician, in-

ventor and philosopher Blaise Pascal famously suggested in his dissertation on ‘decision theory’ that human behaviour was the result of an individual looking at all of their avail-able options, weighing up the pros and cons and then making the most logical decision possible. Of course, this was in the 1600s and there was very litt le reality television around to dissuade him from his idealism.

More recently, scholars of the behavioural sciences, such as Daniel Goleman in his ‘Emotional Intelligence’ series, have suggested that we are far more driven by emotions than simple logic and that by developing our Emo-tional Quotient (EQ), we may bett er under-stand what drives human behaviour and belief systems. Th is certainly seems to be the case. Everything we do is to some extent fi ltered through how our actions will make us feel.

Authors Dan Gregory and Kieran Flanagan.

EXTRACT 2 from the new book about human behav-iour called Selfish, Scared and Stupid by Dan Greg-ory and Kieran Flanagan published by WILEY.

“Success is not final, failure

is not fatal.”

- Winston Churchill

Continued on page 20

20 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Of course, we still post-rationalise our emotional decisions. Th ere are plenty of men in their fi ft ies driving around in sports cars who can tell you all about aerodynamics, Ger-man engineering and their marque’s racing heritage … but all they are really interested in is att racting women half their age. Alarmingly, behavioural studies carried out in Las Vegas indicate that this may oft en be a successful strategy (good news for the ageing gent in a Porsche or Ferrari then).

Hot on the heels of Goleman’s research is the work by Simon Sinek, who tries to narrow down our emotional focus to dealing with a single question — ‘Why?’ — a question that he rather neatly dovetails into the subsequent questions of ‘How?’ and ‘What?’ Th is echoes the earlier work of Friedrich Nietzsche and of Viktor Frankl, who, in Man’s Search for Mean-ing, asserts that one can achieve any ‘what’ if the ‘why’ is large enough.

All make a compelling case for the impor-tance of developing and buying into a clear and inspiring ‘Why?’ Th is has certainly been a signifi cant part of our leadership strategy dur-ing our combined 50 years in the commercial world and it is abundantly apparent in other people whose leadership we most admire. However, as anyone who has ever been on a diet can att est, ‘why’ is oft en temporary. Initially the ‘why’ — be it a high-school reunion three months hence, or a wedding, or a hot date — will inspire enormous amounts of action and even results. But, inevitably, time goes by and the ‘why’ fades. All of a sudden, we fi nd ourselves back on the sofa in our sweatpants, watching Oprah and eating chicken out of a bucket!

Why? Good question. It turns out that, like discipline, an inspiring ‘why’ can be dif-fi cult to maintain over the long haul. A lot of this is driven by our sense of Identity Congru-ence, our innate need to behave in a way that aligns with our sense of self. If the ‘why’ or the program of discipline confl icts with who we think we are at our core, it is highly unlikely to be sustainable.

However, it is also a function of the envi-ronment and systems we create around our-selves. Discipline is a lot easier to maintain in an environment that supports it. Abstinence is relatively easy when you’re an overweight, bombastic senator with nothing on off er (versus being a charismatic President such as Bill Clinton). Eating fresh food is simple in the absence of fast-food options in your local area and workers without families in remote locations are more likely to be willing to put in a litt le overtime than those surrounded by other priorities. (Why wouldn’t they be?)

People working in business-to-business sales oft en pride themselves on the rationality of both themselves and the customers they serve. In fact, many scoff at anything other than an order-taking approach to engag-ing their customers: ‘Th ey’re not interested in soft sell, they want what they want. It’s a necessity’. While we hold an almost fetish-like fondness for offi ce equipment, it does seem a bit of an overclaim to call it a necessity.

So what is it that drives these ‘rationalists’ of the corporate procurement world? When you dig a litt le deeper and ask them some provocative questions, the process of buying business-to-business products reveals itself to be anything but the straightforward, rational process that its participants claim it is. Do they buy the best product? No? Th en perhaps they are not driven by a rational need for quality. Do they buy the cheapest product? No? So it seems they’re not driven by a ratio-nal need for economy either. Th e truth is, if they are lazy, they buy what they have always bought; if they are fearful, they buy the best known brand (remember, ‘no-one ever got fi red for buying IBM’); if they are the typi-cally disengaged middle manager, they don’t change things until someone higher up the chain complains. Of course, the list of causes goes on and on, but very few lead to the world of rational decisions that Pascal promised. Th ese compromised decisions even follow us into our personal lives.

A restaurateur once shared with us that if you have an oversupply of a particular wine, you should present it on your menu as the

second least expensive option, something they referred to as the ‘fi rst-date’ wine. Th e paying partner’s ‘logic’, they claim, runs along these lines: things may not go well, so they don’t want to waste money on the really good stuff , but of course, looking cheap may de-crease the chances of things going anywhere at all. So they assiduously avoid the cheap plonk and opt for the second most expensive option (‘A very good choice if I may say so, Sir’).

Beliefs are hard to shiftSo, if discipline is hard to maintain and

our rational minds are litt le help, perhaps we can enlist the help of belief systems. Of course, this is easier said than done. Yet this methodology — the shift ing of belief systems — has come to dominate in the spheres of leadership, psychology, marketing, sales and performance coaching.

We talk about changing our beliefs in such a casual way that it makes us seem ignorant of just how powerful these beliefs actually are. Many of our beliefs have proved stubbornly hard to move in even the slightest terms over the past few millennia and have in fact led to wars, murder, family breakdowns and even suicides. Nevertheless, it seems to be a logical place to start.

One of the main problems with most

campaigns around behavioural change, be they commercial, government or personal, is that we do tend to focus only on shift ing beliefs. We employ communications cam-paigns, advertising, keynote speakers, audio programs and the like. However, try as we may to bludgeon our beliefs into submission with affi rmations, rational platitudes and emotional blackmail, the beliefs prove to be the cockroaches of the mental world — im-pervious to even nuclear att ack!

Almost every one of us can name at least one thing in our lives that we believe down to our toes is bad for us, self-destructive, un-healthy or emotionally heart wrenching. We know we should stop doing it and yet, despite all our affi rmations — sticky notes stuck to the refrigerator, extra coaching sessions and seemingly rigorous strategies to counter this behaviour — we continue to do it.

Part of the reason for this is that our beliefs are very much att ached to our concep-tion of ourselves. For example, followers of the various religions do not typically say, ‘I believe in the teachings of the Bible’ (or the Koran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita the Dhammapada)’. Th ey are far more likely to say, ‘I’m a Christian’ (or a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist). For people who are of Jewish ethnicity and Jewish religious belief this is no doubt even more self-defi ning. What this means is, changing what you believe is not as simple as … well … changing

your mind. It actually involves changing your conception of who you think you are.

So what are beliefs in essence? It is helpful to think of beliefs as simply meanings we’ve att ached to the events that occur in life, either through personal experience or adoption through cultural context. Over time, and in accordance with our brain’s desire to stream-line our very complicated decision-making processes, this distinction tends to get lost and the meanings we’ve att ached to one occurrence start to become more concrete, universal and non-negotiable.

At this point our brains behave very much like Th e Filter Bubble, which Eli Pariser describes in his excellent book of the same name. We selectively fi lter the information we seek and then absorb to reinforce these newly entrenched beliefs and simultaneously fi lter out anything that may challenge them. Th is is part of the reason why true diversity is so important in teams.

Ethnic, gender and cognitive diversity actually make a group or team collectively smarter. Th ey allow for points of view that would otherwise be missed in a more ho-mogenous group due to contextual blindness. What this all means is that our beliefs are far more powerful than we give them credit for. But what is more disturbing is that we tend to view our own internal persuasive powers as more than up to the challenge of changing them.

Our brains are over-confidentConfi dence is drummed into those of us

who have worked in the corporate world. It is seen as one of the defi ning characteristics of a leader and its absence is seen as a life sentence of working in middlemeh! So much so, that employees are oft en rewarded for talking themselves, and their capabilities, up while quietly intelligent souls who come at the world with a dose of wariness and caution are not so quietly sidelined and told, ‘Stop being such a downer’.

Of course, there’s nothing innately wrong with a healthy sense of confi dence or in being engagingly extrovert. In fact, it can be very useful as long as it is supported by a measure of complementary competence. Th e reasons why over-confi dence evolved in our collec-tive psyche are not completely understood, although perhaps having a bit of swagger and being skilled in the persuasive arts was as important to reproduction in our prehistoric years as it appears to be today.

However, the problems with over-confi -dence are two-fold. Many of us don’t know where confi dence ends and over-confi dence begins, but more concerning are the small over-confi dences we use in our everyday decision-making — the things we don’t even process as overly confi dent. Th e educated guesses we make, the assumptions we use based on past experience and the litt le gen-eralisations we cumulatively fi lter the world through have the capacity to create enormous problems.

Part of this is socialised into us in schools. Whenever a student asks a teacher how to spell a word or what the capital of a particular state is and the teacher replies, ‘What do you think?’ or ‘Try to answer it yourself ’, they are unconsciously increasing the chances of guesswork becoming a lifelong strategy.

In fact, when we conduct over-confi dence tests in the fi eld, asking random passers-by in the street a series of questions they think they should know the answer to — such as, ‘How many countries are there in Europe?’ — or asking them to point in the direction they think is north, people are far more likely to take a guess than to simply admit, ‘I don’t know’.

Of course, teachers are not to blame for this; taking chances based on limited information is necessary for human beings to just get through a typical day. Th is is partly because we don’t want to appear ignorant and lose social standing, but also because we create mental shortcuts out of a need for effi ciency and rarely have all the information we would like before making a decision. For example, even though we know there is a slim chance a driver may not see the red light as they approach an intersection, most of us still step boldly onto the street when that

litt le green fi gure appears on the other side of the road without a moment’s hesitation. Th e ‘confi dence’ we exhibit in other people’s social conformity, however, can get us into rather a lot of trouble.

Just how much of an issue our over-confi dence can be is explored in detail in the book Confi dence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London, writes that lower confi dence is in fact necessary for gain-ing competence, which obviously sits at the base of genuine confi dence. In other words, overconfi dence gets in the way of us being curious, asking questions and developing our skills such that real confi dence is justifi ed.

But the issue is larger than that. When you consider that, statistically, for any endeavour humanity has turned its hand to, half the people involved possessed a less-than-average competency, you begin to understand just what the scale of the over-confi dence prob-lem may be.

Th e dilemma really lies in what over-confi dence robs us of. Of course leaders must convey some sense of certainty in order to engage their team to at least att empt to prove a hypothesis right or wrong. It also makes sense that they have a reasonable amount of confi dence that their hypothesis is probably correct. However, over-confi dence stops us looking too closely at blind spots and possible errors. It has us ‘hope for the best’ and ‘keep calm and carry on’ rather than dealing with issues that may completely derail our objec-tives, regardless of our confi dence levels.

Laboratory conditions don’t existEven when we don’t rely on our own

prejudices, belief systems and confi dence levels and instead do some research into what may be the best course of action, we can still come undone by the environment we choose to test in.

Entire industries exist to help mitigate the mistakes we may make in our endeavours. Re-searchers, social scientists and strategists of all sorts test hypotheses, conduct double blind experiments and enlist carefully selected poll-ing of ‘typical’ subjects, producing reams of data … even big data (the corporate world’s new security blanket).

And yet, failure is everywhere.We have oft en been wary of the true inten-

tions of much research and testing, suggesting (perhaps unfairly) that this work is largely used as ‘screw-up insurance’ — in other words, research conducted not to inform, but as a defence should things go horribly awry. An employee or consultant can hardly be held responsible for failure if the research suggest-ed success was a more likely outcome.

However, even when the aspirations and the participants involved in the research are noble and rigorous, errors still persist. Part of the reason for this is the choice of environ-ment in which research is conducted and the margins for error agreed upon. So much of the research people do isn’t conducted in the real world and the artifi ciality of the environ-

Continued from page 19

Continued on page 21

“We tend to personalise

failure when we experience

it. For all the corporate

world’s talk of failure

being an essential

ingredient to success, it is

seldom greeted with the

enthusiasm of a student

learning a valuable lesson.

The language is often

reminiscent of the breakup

speech, ‘It’s not you … it’s

me!’ “

21WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

ments we create can’t help but skew the re-sults. For example, if you ask someone about their political ideals in a polling question-naire, they are likely to want to appear more caring, more intelligent and more interested than they may actually be. As a result, a lot of research suff ers from much of the same over-confi dence in its results as our own best estimates.

To be fair, big data has started to go a long way to improving this process, given its real-world sourcing, although, like all data, big data is only as powerful as its interpretation and application.

Another possible solution lies in a more scientifi c rather than corporate view of research; that is, research that’s designed to generate information, not conclusions. In other words, rather than looking only to prove a hypothesis, we should also use research as a way of identifying the threats to our hypothe-ses and the conditions under which this proof may come undone.

So instead of focusing on an outcome, we should be focused on generating outcomes.

We over-focus on resultsExacerbating the problem are our goal-fi x-

ated cultures. Again, this is a hanger-on from the world of personal development. For years self-help gurus and business consultants have whipped us into a frenzy with goal-sett ing exercises and experiences that are analogous to facing our fear — such as walking on hot coals or performing a ‘trust fall’ — all while they drum into us a mantra of a no-excuses results obsession.

Given the fervour with which the corpo-rate world has embraced this kind of think-ing, you’d expect organisations around the planet to be ridiculously over-achieving and ticking off milestones and goals like crazy. But

that’s not what’s happening. In fact, the gap between our goals and our achievement of those goals is glaring. In 2011, researchers at US management consulting fi rm Bain &

Company found that among the organ-isations they surveyed, a mere 20 per cent achieve their annual goals and expectations. Once again, as we’ve seen in our personal lives, this is oft en interpreted as the failure of the individuals involved while our systems and the process of goal sett ing itself remain unquestioned.

At sales conferences around the world, inspirational speakers with big teeth and a disturbingly psychotic amount of enthusiasm pump up salespeople, telling them to focus on results with pithy maxims such as, ‘Don’t make excuses, make results’.

Th e same empty platitudes are oft en applied in every sphere of life. To experi-ence this phenomenon for yourself, simply hire a personal trainer or a life coach. One of the favourite anecdotes of the goal-sett ing fraternity is the 1953 Yale goal study. Th e story has it that 1953’s graduating class at Yale was surveyed to see who had writt en goals and who had not. It transpired that only 3 per cent of students had writt en down goals. Years later, when the class was contacted again to check on their progress since leaving college, it was revealed that the 3 per cent with writt en goals had eclipsed the personal wealth of the other 97 per cent put together.

What makes this story interesting is just how powerful stories are in building corporate cultures and strategy, but mostly what makes it interesting is that it is completely made up. Yale has repeatedly denied any knowledge of this survey in 1953 or in any other graduating year.

Yet this story has been repeated so many times by so many diff erent sources that it has fallen into the category of belief. As a result, goal sett ing remains the holy grail of corporate

and personal strategy, but more than that, it is oft en the only strategy employed, which is not to say that goal sett ing isn’t useful or that it doesn’t lead to success. In fact, we annually set goals for our organisation and staff and use benchmarks of accomplishment to monitor our progress. Th e issue occurs when it is seen as a single-bullet strategy.

Buddhists refer to this results obsession as ‘att achment’ and they frame att achment as one of the roots of disharmony. We prefer to see it more as one strategic strand of many that are available. In other words, a clear goal or result is useful, but it may become a limitation as bett er options and information become available.

A great example of this is the Indian story of how to catch a monkey. It is said that in order to catch a monkey you have to stake a coconut fi lled with peanuts to the ground. Th e coconut must have an opening in it just small enough for a monkey to slip its hand into, so that when it reaches inside, grabs the peanuts and forms a fi st, its hand becomes too large to come back out again. Th e monkey becomes so fi xated by the goal that its hand becomes stuck and therefore it is trapped. (Th e story doesn’t explain why you’d want to catch a monkey; we’ll leave it to you to add your own editorial fl avour.) What’s interesting about this story is that it’s a metaphor for how modern goal obsession has aff ected some of the actual results we’ve achieved. Poor work–life balance, chronic health issues, family breakups, envi-ronmental disasters and artifi cially stimulated truck drivers falling asleep at the wheel are all examples of goals gett ing in the way of success. In reality, we actually have very litt le control over results in our lives. Th e drunk driver who fails to yield as we approach an intersection, the earthquake that claims our home and even the client who fi res us because their marriage is on the rocks and they feel a need to assert power in at least one aspect of their lives: all of

these examples, despite the self-help industry’s protestations to the contrary, lie beyond our control.

However, what we can control — and this is where we should look for control — is our behaviour and our environment.

Failure is an error in designWe tend to personalise failure when we

experience it. For all the corporate world’s talk of failure being an essential ingredient to suc-cess, it is seldom greeted with the enthusiasm of a student learning a valuable lesson. Th e language is oft en reminiscent of the breakup speech, ‘It’s not you … it’s me!’

So instead we look to apportion blame, limit damage and, depending on the political environment we’re working in, fi nd a scape-goat. Th at’s very much how we build our cul-tures inside organisations too. So, given that so much of what passes for strategy in the worlds of business and personal development is fraught with faux science, ineff ective processes that fi ght against human nature and systems that set us up for failure, what do we do now? We would like to suggest that we need to change environments and systems, not people. Rather than ignoring or denying our foibles, weaknesses and bad habits, we should instead be designing our systems with them in mind.

If we assume that failure is simply part of the process (and we should), then rather than planning for the best-case scenario (those days when we are fi lled with willpower, cha-risma, clarity and courage) we should instead plan in such a way that we can be successful on days when we are just average, middle of the road or plain old run of the mill.

In other words, we need to design for be-ing selfi sh, scared and stupid.

Published by WILEY, Selfi sh, Scared & Stupid is available now in paperback, RRP $25.95, from all good bookstores and www.selfi shscaredandstupid.com

Continued from page 20

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Are kids failing maths because they can’t read? CLASSROOM

By Misty Adoniou Senior Lecturer in Language, Literacy and TESL at University of Canberra

THERE has been a lot of hand-wringing about mathematics lately. According to national and international testing we are not getting any better at it and plenty of

good reasons have been offered for why this may be so.

Not enough students are studying it, not enough students like it, and not enough qualifi ed teachers teach it. But a much less dis-cussed explanation is that some of our kids fail in maths because they can’t read the questions.

How is maths teaching changing?Students oft en complain they can’t see the

point of maths - beyond basic arithmetic. In response, keen teachers look for ways to show them how maths is relevant to their daily lives.

Trigonometry is set inside problem solv-ing about rugby ball angles and penalty kicks, probability is used to predict the winners of X Factor and Pythagoras’ theorem is applied to save people from a burning building.

Th is shift to meaning and context in learn-ing maths is laudable, but it does fundamental-ly change the nature of maths teaching in ways that teachers are not currently trained for.

When we build stories around maths problems to give them a real-life relevance, we introduce contexts that may be unfamiliar to some students, or information that is irrel-evant to the maths of the question. One of the questions in the most recent PISA maths tests began:

Ninety-fi ve percent of world trade is

moved by sea, by roughly 50,000 tankers, bulk carriers and container ships. Most of these ships use diesel fuel. Engineers are planning to develop wind power support for ships. Th eir proposal is to att ach kite sails to ships and use the wind’s power to help reduce diesel consumption and the fuel’s impact on the environment.

None of this information was necessary to solve the mathematical question that followed. A student may spend a deal of time distracted by this information, either trying to read it successfully or trying to fi gure out if the para-graph contains anything crucial to the maths question that followed.

Being a good reader with a broad general knowledge has become integral to mathemati-cal achievement, so teaching language has become a necessary part of teaching maths.

Many maths teachers roll their eyes when talk turns to teaching language in the maths classroom. Th ey already have a packed sched-ule just trying to fi t the maths content in, let alone teach language - and, anyway, isn’t that the English teacher’s job?

But being an avid reader of novels is no guarantee of success in maths, as the math-

ematics classroom generates its own unique mix of everyday language and maths-specifi c language. It is only the maths teacher who has the discipline knowledge to teach it. Th is is equally true for the generalist primary teacher who must also teach how language works dif-ferently in every subject area, including maths.

Language in the maths classroomVocabulary is the key to success in reading

comprehension and this is particularly true in mathematical reading.

In a novel, unknown words can oft en be guessed from context, or even skipped, and meaning can still be maintained. However, in maths, if one word is not understood it is probable the entire sentence will be miscon-strued.

In the PISA example given earlier there is no redundancy in the maths question that fol-lowed the lengthy prelude information.

At what approximate speed does the wind blow into a kite sail when a wind speed of 24 km/h is measured on the deck of the ship?

Th e linguistics of this question are more complex than the maths it seeks to test.

Oft en, words in mathematics can seem familiar to the student but are used in ways that are specifi c to maths. For example, in this question from a Year 7 maths textbook the word “decimated” is key to gett ing the maths right.

99 Roman soldiers who fl ed from batt le were to be punished. Th e group was lined up and decimated. How many were killed?

Mathematically, “decimated” maintains its original meaning of “one in ten”. In common parlance, however, “decimated” has come to mean “completely wiped out”.

Clearly, the two interpretations of the word “decimated” will each result in a very dif-ferent answer to this maths problem, but only

one will be correct in the maths classroom.It’s not just words. Sentences can also

work diff erently in mathematics. Usually in English there is a sequential logic to sentences; we start at the beginning and read through to the end and rely on this predictability for comprehension.

However, in mathematics the logic of sen-tences may be organised in more unexpected ways.

For example, “Draw a circle with a diam-eter of one-third the sum of 6+9+15”, requires the learner to start the operation from the end of the sentence and move backwards through to the beginning of the sentence in order to successfully complete the instruction.

Th ese language diff erences need to be explicitly taught to students, but very oft en the language is so familiar to teachers they fail to notice what they should be making visible to their students.

All teachers need a strong and explicit understanding of how the English language works. Knowing your content simply isn’t enough to make a real diff erence to student learning outcomes.

Why it matt ersStudents who fail in mathematics are less

likely to go on to further study and more likely to have lower-paying jobs.

To teach maths properly we have to be clear on whether students are gett ing it wrong because they don’t understand the maths or because they can’t comprehend the questions. Either is serious, and both require very diff er-ent teaching solutions.

Teachers must take up the challenge and teach both the content and the language of mathematics, but how well prepared are they to do that?

ARTICLE COURTESY: WWW.THECONVERSATION.COM.AU

25WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Children learn to lie from the age of two – here’s how to get them to tell the truth

LEARNING

By Lara Warmelink Research fellow for Security, Department of Psychology at Lancaster University

LYING is often seen as bad behaviour in children. Fairy tales and folk stories, from Aesop’s Peter who cried wolf to Washing-ton’s cherry tree tell children to be honest

and never lie. But what can we do to encour-age children to tell the truth?

Children learn to lie from about the age of two. Th e fi rst lies children learn to tell are denials of wrongdoing. From the age of three they also learn to tell “white” lies. Th ese are lies that are told to benefi t other people or to be polite.

For example, a child learns that when you’ve made a surprise birthday present for mummy, you don’t tell her about it and when your aunt gives you a present you should thank her, even if it’s horrible. Telling these lies well is an important social skill.

Developing a social skillYoung children start to learn to lie as they

mature cognitively and socially. In order to lie, children have to understand that other people have their own beliefs and thoughts that are not the same as theirs.

A child also has to realise that other people may believe things that are wrong. Th is is a skill called theory of mind and it develops slowly in the preschool and kindergarten years. As children become more able to think about what other people think and feel, they learn when it’s appropriate to lie and how to lie convincingly.

Lying convincingly is diffi cult for young children. Th ey oft en fail at this, especially if they are asked further questions. Researchers in one study found that 74% of lying children gave the game away in their answer to a follow-up question.

And as children age they are more likely to understand that they need to match the answer to follow-up questions to their lie. Around 80% of three and four-year-olds revealed themselves, but only around 70% of fi ve-year-olds and 50% of six and seven-year-olds did.

Failing to learn when to lie and how to do so convincingly can lead to problems for older children. Research has shown that adolescents with lower social skills are less convincing when lying than their peers with bett er social skills.

Persistent lying is also a sign that children have not developed socially and cognitively as much as their peers. Children who lie oft en are more likely to be aggressive, criminal or show other disruptive behaviour.

Th e negative eff ects of telling tales are related to whether it is perceived as lying by others, for example by parents or teachers. It is diffi cult to study whether children who lie a lot without others fi nding out also show these negative eff ects.

The temptation testWhat can adults do to encourage a child to

tell the truth? Victoria Talwar, Cindy Arruda and Sarah Yachison conducted new research to investigate this. Th ey tested children be-tween the ages of four and eight.

For their study, the team used the “tempta-tion resistance test”. In this test, the researcher

puts a noisy toy behind a child, so they can’t see it. Th e researcher then leaves the child alone with the toy and asks them not to peek at the toy in the meantime. As you might expect, around 80% of the children do peek at the toy.

When the researcher comes back, they ask the child whether they peeked. Th e child can now lie and deny this and 67.5% of children in the study did.

Th e researchers wanted to know if threats of punishment (such as “you will be in trouble if you peeked”) and appeals for honesty infl uenced how oft en the children’s lied. Th ey tested two appeals.

One where they told the children that the researcher “will feel happy if you tell the truth“ and one where they told them “telling the truth is the right thing to do”.

Th ey found that without an appeal to tell the truth, more than 80% of the children lied, whether or not the child was threatened with punishment. Saying that telling the truth would make the researcher happy reduced lying to around 50%, for both threatened and not threatened children.

Saying that telling the truth was the right thing to do reduced lying to 40%, but only when the child was not going to be punished – but 80% of children who were told they’d be punished if they peeked, but that telling the truth was the right thing to do, lied.

Th e research suggests that if you want a child to confess to a wrongdoing, you should reassure them that they won’t be in trouble for confessing and tell them that telling the truth would make you happy. And then you cross your fi ngers the child is not one of the 40% who are likely to lie anyway.

ARTICLE COURTESY: WWW.THECONVERSATION.COM.AU

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Women reaching greater ALTITUDES CELEBRA TION

THE Altitude Awards, sponsored by York Jewellers, were held in December 2014.

Th ese awards are an opportunity to acknowledge women from the Blue

Mountains and Western Sydney who have made outstanding contributions as; business owners, volunteers, employees and creative thinkers, in retail, charities and community organisations.

Women with Altitude founder, Andrea Turner-Boys said: “Th e Altitude Awards are about celebrating and championing the achievements of women in business from our region.”

Winners from 10 categories have been chosen for their outstanding contribution in each fi eld.

An independent judging panel announced the winners of each category at the Gala Pre-sentation Luncheon on Th ursday, December 4th at Tatt ersall’s Function Centre, Penrith.

“Th ese awards are about supporting one another, building on our businesses, celebrat-ing how far we’ve come and planning for the future, both professionally and personally.

“Small business owners are always incredibly busy and focussed on building their business, oft en with limited support or encouragement. Th ese awards are a way for them to connect with their peers and the small business community,” said Ms Turner-Boys.

Th e 2014 Altitude Awards are held annu-

ally by Women with Altitude. Women with Altitude exists to connect professional women and entrepreneurs, and encourage collabora-tion, business referrals and business support.

Th is business networking group provides inspiration, encouragement, support and busi-ness knowledge. Th eir members range from sole operators to businesses owners with 25 staff .

Th e 2014 Altitude Award winners are as follows:

Blue Mountains • Women with Altitude, Member of

the Year AwardA voted category. Th is woman demon-

strates the core values of openness, warmth, and generosity. She embraces the value of networking and relationship building with an abundance mentality. 

Winner: Fiona Donnelly, Telopea Services• Akorah, On My Way AwardBest up and coming small business for

new businesses and businesses operating 1+ years and located in Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Regions. 

Winner: Amanda O’Bryan, Creative Queen Bees

• ATA, Soaring Solo AwardMicro Business of the year – Sole operator

business owned and run by a woman in Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Regions. 

• Jo Muirhead, Purple CoPenrith CBD Corp, Retailer of the YearA retailer, shopfront or online retailer

based in Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Regions.

Shannon Preskett , Litt le Knick Knacks• Penzance Advertising, Skys the

Limit, RegionalBusiness Woman of the year AwardRecognizing a businesswoman who is

leading the way in her business or industry, Demonstrating innovation, development and leads by example amongst her peers. Must be from a business established 3+

Peita Davies, Choice Home Loans

Penrith• Compass Training

Climb Every Mountain AwardBest Business of the year – Must have been

operating a minimum of 4 years and located in Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Regions.

Amanda Wylie, Insignia Hair & Day Spa• Western Weekender, Emerging

TalentAn employee, trainee or apprentice from

Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Re-gions who demonstrates initiative, leadership, determination and ability. 

Fiona Skrzypnik, AT+A• Creative Queen Bees, Big Ideas

AwardA person or business who has exhibited

outstanding creative thinking. – A product, concept or service that’s come to life from an original idea. Must be located Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Region.

Nellie Barnett , UpRaw Café & Juice Bar

Blacktown• Write Copy

Service with a SmileBest customer service practice from a busi-

ness located in Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Regions. Either business to business or business to consumer, this category recog-nises outstanding service. 

Kellie Tickner, Nicole McMillan, Lynn Mathison Coreen Ave Veterinary Clinic

• Target RadioCommunity SpiritCharity or organisation that aims to

achieve social, cultural, community or envi-ronmental outcomes for our region. Operat-ing minimum of 6 months and located in Blue Mountains & Western Sydney Regions. 

Donna Patriarca, BREED• Women with Altitude Judges

Choice AwardDeb Cash, Beaut-T-Ful Bags 

• Brave Awards (Medallions):Melissa Ferrari, Paint the Town ReadLorna HollingerLisa Mandavy-SammourLisa GormanTrish Fehon

Th e major sponsor for the 2014 Altitude Awards is York Jewellers who are celebrating 40 years in business this year. Th ey are joined by the following local businesses who have sponsored individual categories in the awards; Accounting and Taxation Advantage, Akorah, Compass Training, Write Copy, Penrith CBD Corp, Target Radio Network, Th e Western Weekender, Creative Queen Bees, Penzance Advertising Agency and Women with Altitude.

The winners of the 2014 Women With Altitude Awards.

28 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Email: [email protected]

Wearable technology VS health revolution BEHAVIOUR

By David Glance Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice at University of Western Australia

RUMOURS are surfacing that Microsoft will launch its own smartwatch in the next few weeks.

Given that Microsoft Windows Phone ac-counts for just 2.5% of the world smartphone market, the watch will work with Apple and Android devices as well as Microsoft ’s own platform.

What is interesting about this move is that the commentary about the device is focusing on its role in tracking heart rate rather than its other features.

Th e focus on the health aspects of wearables is part of a general trend amongst technology journalists who predict a “coming revolution in healthcare” as a result of these devices.

Th is is not surprising given that when Apple CEO Tim Cook announced Apple’s smart watch he described it as a “comprehen-sive health and fi tness companion.”

Th e future of wearables as health devices is easy to imagine. Sensors will collect a range of data, soft ware guided by artifi cial intelligence algorithms will make sense of this data and both the wearer and the wearer’s physician will be updated with a real-time analysis of the wearer’s health status.

Couple this with the terrifying statistic that in 2012, 50% of all US adults, that is 117 million people, had a chronic disease. In 2006, 84% of the total health budget was spent

looking aft er this 50% of the population. Th e situation in the rest of the world is not that far behind the US.

Unfortunately, there are many problems with this picture that make the impact of wear-ables on health outcomes extremely limited.

Th e fi rst of these is the limited number of people who currently use any sort of fi tness tracker or smartwatch. Somewhere between 5% and 15% of Americans wear fi tness track-ers of any sort.

Of these, 35% will stop wearing their devices aft er six months. It is not known what proportion of people with smartwatches actually use the fi tness tracking capabilities of these watches on an ongoing basis.

Th ere is litt le information about the

demographics of people who purchase fi tness trackers and smartwatches; however, given the cost, consumers are likely to be the “wealthy well”.

People suff ering from chronic disease on the other hand are more likely to come from the less educated and lower income popula-tion.

And then there is the issue of what data these devices collect and what we can actually do with that data. Fitness trackers and smart-watches currently report activity through steps and heart rate.

Th is is useful information to measure exer-cise intensity and duration, but not very useful as a diagnostic for health.

Even if sensors could deliver information

that was useful in actual diagnosing or manag-ing health conditions, there would always be an issue with doctors reluctance to rely on information they haven’t themselves collected and on equipment that was not medically certifi ed.

Acting on unverifi ed information could leave medical personnel legally if that informa-tion later turned out to be incorrect.

None of the smartwatch manufacturers is currently interested in taking their watches through a medical certifi cation process and so the data that comes from them is always going to be couched in legal disclaimers.

Finally, there is the issue of privacy. Storing step counts on Fitbit.com’s website may be ac-ceptable to most people but the idea of storing more sensitive health-related information with companies like Apple and Google will prove another major barrier to adoption.

It was privacy fears that stalled the adop-tion of Google’s and Microsoft ’s previous att empts at providing a cloud-based health record services.

Doctors and health services wanting to interact directly with data provided by pa-tients’ wearables would have to be extremely confi dent that they could do this without that data being accessed by hackers.

Fundamentally however, wearables do not address the central issue of the burgeoning chronic disease problem which is caused by poor diet, drinking alcohol, smoking and lack of exercise.

Th e root cause of these behaviours are social and economic. While the tech compa-nies may try to market wearables on the basis of health benefi ts, these devices will never be a revolutionary cure.

ARTICLE COURTESY: WWWTHECONVERSATION.COM.AU

29WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

30 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2015

Café where heritage and nature meetBy Kim Wilkinson Editor www.gowestgpurmet.com.au

PARRAMATTA Park would have to be among the most beautiful locations in Western Sydney, with its expansive cycle ways, leafy walking tracks, playgrounds,

ample picnic areas, sporting grounds and entertainment spaces, and lush aboriginal landscape meandering around the Parramatta River.

It’s also a world heritage site, forming one of 11 Convict sites around Australia. Nature meets aboriginal and colonial history in this spacious and varied outdoor landscape, pro-viding an oasis from the hustle and bustle of the city centre with a constant reminder of our national heritage.

One of the highlights of this modern urban park is the beautifully refurbished ‘Old Visitors Centre’ – now known as Parramatt a Park Cafe.

Located on the Eastern side of the park, overlooking the river bank, and about three quarters of the way around the one way drive, the Cafe is a popular spot with bike riders, mother’s groups, and dog owners! Th is dog friendly cafe is a rare fi nd – the perfect place to enjoy a great meal, and take your best friend along too!

While only open till 3pm, their All Day Breakfast is great for those who like an extra-long sleep-in on the weekend, but don’t want to start their day with lunch!

Th e breakfast menu includes all the usual suspects – a wide selection of toasts with jam (including gluten free bread), fruit breads and Bircher Muesli, and some good value hot breakfast items with a huge range of sides to make your own unique combination.

Reservations are recommended, especially on the weekend, and are taken no less than 24 hours in advance.

On the particular lazy Saturday we chose to take advantage of the late breakfast option, we hadn’t managed to organise a reservation. Th ankfully we were able to grab a table when arriving around 11:30am, however I don’t think we would’ve been as fortunate if we’d arrived any later.

Th e fi rst thing you’ll notice is how relaxed you feel amongst the natural bushland sett ing. Whether overlooking the river, or taking in the park views, the fresh air and sounds of cicadas and birdlife quickly take your mind off city life.

Th e outdoor wrap around verandah is a great sett ing any time of year – where you can enjoy a cool breeze in summer or fi nd a sunny spot on a winter’s day.

We found a nice corner outside to watch the bike riders go by. Milly (our pooch) was off ered a bowl of water and Hubby had his

ever-favourite Eggs Benedict with ham.I was keen to try the Vegetarian Big

Breakfast, and very glad I did. My two eggs where poached well done as requested, and delicious alongside the tomato, avocado and hash brown.

Th e staff were very accommodating to swap the mushrooms for sautéed baby spinach – which completed the meal perfectly.

We were all of us where impressed with the taste and quality of the coff ee and food, and the friendly service and would eagerly return for breakfast again.

Lunch provides another broad range of enticing choices including gourmet toasted sandwiches, and salads that you can make your own with a selection of extras.

Th ere’s also soup, burgers, pasta and seafood dishes including Grilled Barramundi Fillet with salad dressed in creamy balsamic and chips too good to resist. Th e tartare sauce supplied on the side isn’t too tangy, how-ever lemon is also supplied to adjust to your

desired taste.Th e dessert range of biscuits, cakes, tarts

and slices changes regularly and can be found on display inside. Th e Cafe is also licensed, providing a good selection of beers, sparkling, white and red wines – making it the perfect sett ing for a unique business meeting or spe-cial occasion.

With all its many favourable att ributes, the best part about Parramatt a Park Café, is if you are ever tempted to over indulge in the enticing range of food and beverages on off er – there is 3.5kms of walking track where you can go and walk it all off !

PARRAMATTA PARK CAFEEntry via Parramatt a Park GatehouseCnr Pitt & Macquarie Streets, Parra-

matt a NSW 2150P: 02 9630 0144 E: cafe@ppeventcen-

tre.com.auW: htt p://www.ppeventcentre.com.auOpen: Everyday 8am to 3pm

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