NSW - Reclaiming 1st
Campaign Launch Speech by Peter Holmes à Court

Hilton Hotel, Sydney

29 April 2009

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

I have had the opportunity to live and work in a number of great cities in Australia and around the world.

I have worked in Queensland, where I sit on the board of Queensland Rail the largest rail operator in the country. I have also lived and worked in Westen Australia and Victoria.

I spent 16 years living overseas but in 1999 my wife Divonne and I chose to sell up and move from New York to Sydney.

We didn’t do it on a whim. We travelled for close to 6 months to work out where in the world we should work and where we should bring up our small tribe of kids.

We thought long and hard and we chose Sydney… we chose NSW.

We chose it for its beauty, relative convenience, low pollution, business opportunities, weather, and, of course, its football.

The fertile plains, scenic coast and large number of pointy buildings are not lost on either the visitor or the resident.

NSW’s pre-eminent place in the short European history of Australia is easy to see, easy to understand.

I am here because I want to be – because I believe in NSW and I believe in its tradition of being first.

However no organisation, no state, or nation—or even a little football club—is protected from chilling periods of stagnation, regardless of how storied its history, how advantageous its natural position, or how industrious and numerous its people.

We have all seen NSW’s slide in relative performance in recent years - watched it drop down the premiership table –but we are not here to debate the causes.

Whatever the reasons for the current state of underperformance, they are not as important as formulating a plan to return to the winners dais and reclaiming first.

Economic historians can and should debate the reasons for the slide, but as business people our task is formulating the plans for rebuilding and then working to implement them.

Today is not a launch in the sense that a finished vessel will roll off the dock and we will all be able to put our feet up and enjoy a harbour tour.

Today is simply the beginning of a process. It is about sourcingideas, forgingthem into achievable projects, and generatingthe political will to ensure that change occurs.

This process is about business defining its part of the agenda:

• To ensure the right things get built in the right place – in other words, the by-pass in the location best suited to moving traffic not in the location best suited to moving votes;
• To ensure the economy is boosted for enduring performance not simply a well-timed spike in confidence;
• To ensure the friction on business is reduced so the engine can run more efficiently; and
• That government reforms so it can better serve the people

I have some small experience of what it is like to undertake a process like this and to make such a beginning.

As you may be aware I have a minor interest in a little rugby league club that has been known to arouse the strongest of passions in the most unlikely of people.

Behind the very public progress we have made at the South Sydney Rabbitohs there are a number of important things that have happened that are relevant to the challenges faced by New South Wales.

Like NSW, the Club had been number one. It had won more premierships than any other team in Australian sport, but those were a distant memory. The cupboard had not seen any new silverware in over 30 years and we had recently been stockpiling an unwanted quantity of wooden spoons. Rabbitohs supporters were desperate to reclaim first.

Russell and I got control of the Club in 2006, and we set about making a multitude of changes to get the business heading in the right direction.

None of the ideas we implemented were new. They all existed inside the Club or were well documented at other Clubs, and just as it will be with this initiative, it was a process—a process of gathering the ideas already in existence and creating from those ideas achievable goals.

Like NSW we had fallen behind the competition and needed to make changes across the board:

• Infrastructure had to be put in place;
• Our engine, our players, had to be looked after, and given a chance to do their jobs;
• Governance needed a major overhaul, specifically to separate politics from good business decision-making;
• Members had to get engaged because nothing could be achieved without them, and with them we could be unstoppable.

Sometimes we bit off more than we could chew - and we famously hit a few road bumps - but the great majority of the changes worked, and have stuck.

It took an incredible amount of work, and we took a fair amount of criticism.

There was, and still is, so much to do.

But we can recognize the progress: from effectively bankrupt wooden-spooners 3 years ago, to today where the Rabbitohs have a competitive roster, the infrastructure to properly prepare the team, the computer and technology systems, the coaching and support structure, an efficient back office, and, most importantly, an informed and rapidly growing membership base.

On the competition ladder, the team is by no means first, but it is clearly heading in the right direction.

I see the changes and opportunities of the Reclaiming First Initiative as very similar to those faced by the Rabbitohs.

I figure some of those involved in this initiative will cop a bit of criticism along the way.

And it is unlikely you will be properly rewarded for your work.

The rewards will be intangible - from seeing good ideas implemented and being able to look back on the legacy of your contribution in the years to come.

That contribution, first and foremost, is to ensure that with all the good ideas of the business leaders and academics you bring the people of New South Wales along with you.

At the Rabbitohs our most important task in turning things around was bringing our people, our Members, along with us.

At the time of the vote in 2006 we had roughly 4000 members and today we have more than 14,000. 10,000 more people who believe in the club reclaiming first – 10,000 more people who are willing to contribute to reclaiming first.

We need to gain that kind of commitment from the people of NSW. But let’s not forget the competition.

Early on in the process of formulating our bid for the Rabbitohs a stalwart of the club told us that - having been kicked out of the competition in recent years - it was good enough for the Club to simply be back in the NRL. In essence, that we should be happy as fans to just be in the game.

Just as being a club in the NRL, to be a State in the Australian Federation is to be in a ruthless competition. Whether you chose to compete or not.

Just as all those other clubs are in competition with the Rabbitohs, all the other states are aggressively competing with NSW.

If NSW does not become fiercely competitive, we will continue to watch the state fall behind the other states.

I mentioned that I have lived and worked in Victoria and Queensland.

People in Melbourne often like to joke about disliking Sydney for one reason or another or make some sweeping, disparaging generalisation about its people. I am reluctant to tell them that people in Sydney don’t actually spend much time thinking about Melbourne, (which is a charming place to visit a couple of times a year).

But don’t think for a moment that the seemingly good-natured ribbing of a Melbournian doesn’t belie a seething undercurrent of competition at a corporate and government level.

As for Brisbane, it is just outright open warfare. At Origin time, there is almost open hostility around the Queensland Rail board table. Even though we have a chairman from Victoria, he still insists on the board papers being printed in Maroon.

It is not enough for NSW to simply be in the game when those around you, those that line up in the teams of Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, etc., spend their time working out how to get your business, how to take your investment capital, how to win your concerts, how to stage your sporting events and how to steal your jobs.

It is simply not enough to raise a flag, dress in light blue and rally behind an implausibly large flower a couple of times a year.

To turn-around this great state will require hard work, good ideas, scientific and financial rigour, egos to be pushed aside, and a cultural movement to get the people of the State to enthusiastically embrace the initiatives.

None of the best plans will be enacted if the population is not excited by the ideas and willing to help create the platform for the political will. Just as we have tried to do at the Rabbitohs we have to get the people of NSW to believe in reclaiming first and play their role in reclaiming first.

In a football club, the weekend’s results will always create news, the exciting tries will always create a TV grab, and the signing of a new player will always provide a headline of hope.

But to turn the Club around we had to do the boring structural stuff: starting with new infrastructure for training, computer systems, staff and organization structure, sponsorship structures, more impactful community engagement, and so on and so forth.

To turn this state around will involve a similar comprehensive effort but on a far, far greater scale.

Like the work done by the team at the Rabbitohs, reclaiming first for NSW will require us to do the boring stuff. It will take many years to complete the transformation and have the position of our state match our great history, our natural advantages and give the people of New South Wales what they deserve.

And now is the time to do it.

In this economic climate the conventional wisdom and traditional ways of doing things can be questioned, perhaps must be questioned.

I believe we can reclaim our natural position of first, and as someone who has chosen to live here, I am ready to contribute and encourage you to as well.

However, just like the South Sydney football club, when it comes to doing my bit, I am just one of 14,000 members, and in New South Wales I am just one of 7 million members who has a stake in the progress of this great state and wants to see it return to the top of the table.

If we are going to do this then we have to do it together, and if we can do that, I believe we will see New South Wales reclaim first.

Let’s get going.