Workshops and Roundtables - Outputs

The Premier’s Economic and Social Recovery Advisory Council (the Council) was established to provide recommendations about how the government, the community and the private sector can collectively contribute to Tasmania’s recovery from COVID-19.

The Council’s Interim Report examined immediate and short term recovery approaches. The Council has commenced the final phase of its work, which will lead to its Final Report to Government in the first quarter of 2021.

Cross-Sector Workshops

The final phase is looking at Tasmania’s recovery from COVID-19 over the medium to longer term. The Council intends to provide actionable advice in the form of strategies that can deliver outcomes in the next 2-5 years. The strategies will aim to help Tasmanians build their own future as we emerge from COVID-19.

COVID-19 has dramatically changed our world and impacted everyone across our State. The situation remains uncertain - right now, no one can predict how the virus, vaccines, treatment and other factors will play out. Acknowledging this, the Council is seeking to understand the potential consequences, constraint and opportunities that might arise for Tasmania if the virus and associated factors take different paths - for example, ’what if’ an effective vaccine is distributed quickly in Australia and globally, or ‘what if’ an effective vaccine takes a relatively long time to develop and distribute? We are not attempting to predict the future, just exploring what strategies might work in different hypothetical states of the world.

With this in mind, the Council is holding a series of interactive ‘what if’ workshops, based around broad topics to examine a range of issues. We are seeking to understand the risks and challenges that Tasmania may face into the future, how to capitalise on opportunities and to position our State as best we can in an uncertain world.

The Council has developed two potential future scenarios to get Tasmanians thinking. The scenarios are stories of how COVID-19 might play out over the next three years for use as a tool for creative thinking. They are not predictions, or expected outcomes.

The scenarios are being used as part of a process to gather ideas from Tasmanians about potential economic and social recovery strategies in the context of a very uncertain future.

This process involves nine workshops across the State to:

• facilitate creative thinking around potential consequences and constraints of COVID‑19 over the next 3 years; and
• facilitate creative thinking around potential recovery opportunities that could be implemented and delivered within the next 5 years.

Workshop Participation

Peak bodies and networks were approached and asked to suggest people to participate in the workshop. They were asked to nominate people that have relevant expertise and knowledge, are creative thinkers, and do not normally have the ear of government.

View the organisations we approached for each workshop.

Nine workshops were run across the state and the participants of those workshops have been selected to form ‘clusters of interest’ around particular sectors and industries. You can view the outputs and the participants who attended each workshop by selecting a summary document (PDF) located below, under the sub-heading, Workshop Outputs.

Key Purpose of Workshops

The participants were informed that the key purpose of the workshop was to:

• identify potential recovery opportunities that could be implemented and delivered within the next 5 years by governments, businesses and the community - noting that recovery is in all of our hands, not just a responsibility of governments; and
• consider the five key themes being explored throughout this consultation process, specifically:
  1. economic activity/investment and jobs;
  2. skills, education and job readiness;
  3. access to the basics;
  4. mental and physical help; and
  5. community/social connectedness.

Workshop Methodology

Two scenarios were used as a tool to facilitate some creative thinking around the potential consequences, constraints, and opportunities associated with the scenarios. This methodology, referred to as ‘Stretch Thinking’, has been designed by the University of Tasmania, and used by the Western Australia Government and by Emergency Management Australia for COVID-19 recovery.

The workshops were held over a three hour period. Participants were provided with information pack and access to an introductory webinar prior to the workshop to enable a rapid creative thinking process to be undertaken.

Click here to view the introductory webinar.

Click here to view the information pack (PDF).

Workshop Outputs

The outcomes of each workshop are available in the table below (PDF).

A facilitator guided groups of participants through the ‘Stretch Thinking’ process that involved identifying potential consequences, constraints, and opportunities associated with the two scenarios. Attachment 2 in each summary captures this discussion by participants during the workshop.

Having identified a range of potential opportunities under each of the scenarios, the groups of participants were asked to identify the ‘best’ or ‘key’ opportunities their workgroups identified, and these were then presented to the whole workshop.

The last task was for all participants to individually identify which of the entire set of opportunities identified within the workshop were the ‘best’ opportunities (they were entitled to vote for as many opportunities as they liked).

Attachment 1 in each workshop summary provides a list of the key potential opportunities identified in the workshop. Those opportunities do not reflect the views of PESRAC or the Secretariat, rather, they give a ‘sense of the room’ from participants as to what opportunities are considered of a higher priority from all of those identified in the workshop.

These outcomes will also be used in a number of regional roundtables, which have been designed to gain input and feedback and an understanding of the regional perspective when considering potential strategies for addressing COVID‑19 impacts.

Regional Roundtables

One key consideration for PESRAC is understanding the perspective of regional Tasmania on the opportunities identified by the 9 cross-sector workshops. PESRAC is mindful that there are very real differences for regional Tasmania relative to urban and city areas, and accordingly, is conducting three roundtables specifically for regional Tasmania.

The regional roundtables were designed to seek input from participants on the ‘key/priority’ opportunities that have been identified by participants in the cross-sector workshops. In particular, the Roundtables sought input on:

• the relative priority of the ‘key’ opportunities for regional Tasmania - which ones ring truest for regional Tasmania and why;
• any specific implementation issues that are important for regional settings for the opportunities identified by regional Tasmania as a priority; and
• the role of regional Tasmania in implementing any of the key opportunities.

Participants were provided with an information pack (which highlights opportunities identified as ‘key/priority’ by cross-sector workshop participants) and access to an introductory webinar prior to the roundtables.

Click here to view the information pack - that is, opportunities identified as ‘key/priorities’ by cross-sector workshop participants.

Click here to view the introductory webinar for the regional roundtables.

The outcomes of the roundtables are available in the table below.