Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Williams for his question. He is a great advocate for all things New South Wales in this parliament, including the role of regional New South Wales and the role of industry, innovation and science in regional New South Wales.

Perhaps unlike those opposite, it was a pleasure to join with the Prime Minister today as well as the member for Paterson to officially launch the smart specialisation strategy put up by the RDA from the Hunter. The smart specialisation strategy is an initiative of the European Union where local regions identify their own particular competitive advantages and work out how to generate increased economic growth from this knowledge.

RDA Hunter has taken the learnings from the EU's experience and applied it to Newcastle and the Hunter region. It is the first region in Australia to use this model and undertake such an analysis. Working with the EU delegation to Australia, UTS, the Commonwealth and many local business and community partners, RDA Hunter has spent the last three months composing a smart specialisation strategy for their region supported by five underlying principles: locally driven process—locals know what their regions comparative advantages and disadvantages are; a focus on innovation—innovation policy tailored to the local context; functional economic zones, not regional boundaries—for example, based on labour markets or transport flows—and functional zones can include connections between regional centres and cities; more effective spending of public resources; funding targeted to strengthen regional comparative advantage and initiatives to create sustainable jobs and growth; evaluation and monitoring—evidence based feedback into policy with clear benchmarks and measurable goals to assess success and failure.