A message from the President – Steve Maras 

The late American astronaut, Neil Armstrong, who was born on this day in 1930, was the first person to walk on the Moon. He was an individual who achieved many ‘firsts’ in his life, most notably of course the world-renowned July 1969 mission.

This is an important milestone to acknowledge as both Adelaide and South Australia strive to become the first among Australian jurisdictions, and we have a proud history in blazing a trail and punching above our weight. 

The Torrens Title system of inexpensively registering and checking property titles (since adapted and adopted by many other jurisdictions around the world) was established in South Australia in 1858, Adelaide was the first city in Australia to prepare planning legislation under the guidance of the town planner in 1920, Australia’s first public housing authority – the South Australian Housing Trust – was founded in 1936, Rundle Mall in 1976 became Australia’s first pedestrian mall, the Adelaide Convention Centre was built in 1987 and became Australia’s first purpose-built convention facility, and in more recent times, 2014 saw Adelaide crowned the first Australian ‘Lighthouse City’ by CISCO.

As you know, this list is merely a brief snapshot of our full history of ‘firsts’ and points to what this sector has been able to advocate for and achieve over this period. 

But we now find ourselves at an important economic cross-road, with South Australia’s jobless rate leading the country and our CBD’s office vacancy rates hitting levels not seen since the1990s – not a pretty picture. 

That’s why, more than ever, we need the right policy settings to stimulate growth and create jobs. We need the State Government and Opposition to employ our mantra of supporting jobs involving hard hats and steel caps, more than ever before.

And there are some important opportunities on the horizon, ranging from the redevelopment of the oRAH site to investing significantly in Port Adelaide to transforming the Riverbank from Bowden through to Hackney.

This means that we need to continue ‘blazing the trail’ to achieve milestones not seen in other jurisdictions. We need to continue to delineate ourselves from other states and territories to give investors a reason to invest, to give developers a reason to develop, to give tourists a reason to tour and to give residents a reason to reside. 

At the Property Council, this is what drives us to achieve results on your behalf and that’s exactly what we’re doing.