Building cities is Australia's next export industry

Australian architecture and design firms are already Asian regional leader in formulating environmentally sensitive design. The Snowy-Mountain Scheme operates in large scale water purification efforts in India and other Asian nations. And, Aussie firms are leaders in solar power and renewable energy.

We have exceptional talent in environmental engineering that is producing new products for desert and tropical climates to do everything from retard erosion to purifying water. We are spawning new firms in areas as diverse as disaster resilient housing to wind power systems and new battery and bio-fuels.

For example, Australian technology is pioneering in design and engineering of green low energy buildings for sustainable city building in the Middle East and China. It is clear from the graph below that our skills, capacity and know how in building sustainable places is recognized globally.

Australians are becoming world leaders in new materials products and processes. So, as we build and re-new our cities we must use this as the opportunity to create new firms and new products that can compete globally. To meet the challenge of converting this diverse array of organizations and enterprises into a new export sector we have to nurture these firms and give them a platform to expand their global opportunities.

This calls for leadership from Austrade to form an international sustainable and disaster industries working group and for the national government to follow the lead of our European competitors like Sweden to make trading in sustainability a national endeavor with funding, national competitions for best firms and tax breaks for export firms in this new arena.

Why shouldn't Australia award the equivalent to the Global Sustainability Prizes every year? This would put a spotlight of the world on us for what we do in the world and what best practices are around the world.

We have another advantage in the global sustainability competition. We don't have immediate competitors among our global regional neighbors. This is the time, like in the "Great Depression", when re-building the nation with projects like the Sydney Harbor Bridge provide an opportunity to re-position the nation's economy for a new era.

Post Copenhagen is the new era, we can use our know-how to rebuild our cities using scheme like the Christie Report as models for the world class rebuilding. Let's view the re-building of our rails, roads and suburbs not as a crisis but the opportunity to build new jobs and a better future for all Australians.