On the 4th of February 2025, our research assistant, Holly O’Neil, attended the 2025 Sydney Summit held at the ICC Sydney. The annual summit’s focus this year was on the concept of time running out. “We are 25 years into the new century. We have 25 years left to achieve net zero. We are 25 months away from the next state election, and the federal election is right around the corner.”
The list of speakers included the Hon. Courtney Houssos; Senator Andrew Bragg; Prof. the Hon. Bob Carr; Trudi Mares ,the Deputy Secretary of Planning, Integration and Passenger, Transport for NSW; former Australian Ambassador to the USA, Arthur Sinodinos; the Hon. Paul Scully, MP and NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces; Grace Vegesana, National Director for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition; Estelle Grech, Planning Policy Manager at Committee for Sydney; and many more.
The agenda included hearing from various analysts, economist, and policy-makers in Sydney about differing reports from the past year, such as the ‘Life in Sydney’ report and the ‘State of the City’ report; panel discussions exploring productivity and prosperity in an era of uncertainty; ‘Big Idea’ pecha kucha presentations to envision new visions of Sydney by 2027; political conversations and federal election analysis in anticipation of this years federal election; considerations around climate change and how it will affect the city; and understanding how unpaid labour and the time-cost of caring responsibilities has an affect on the workforce in Sydney. Throughout the summit, audience members were invited to vote on what questions they would like discussed in panels.
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