Could Campbell Street become our city’s new innovation heart?

Don’t Lease Away TAFE’s Future This week I met with Skills and Training Minister Felix Ellis and senior TasTAFE management to discuss the future of Hobart’s Campbell Street campus and, in particular, the opportunity presented by several largely empty floors within the building. One option being explored is to lease them out as ordinary commercial office space. I am convinced Tasmania should be asking a much bigger question: What could we build there? For decades, TAFE has provided Hobart with practical, professional education in business, information technology, graphic design and many other disciplines. The quality of that training has long been strong, and the institution still has experienced teachers with valuable skills and knowledge. Rather than allowing TAFE to gradually diminish, we should be thinking about how it can evolve. Campbell Street presents an opportunity to create something genuinely exciting in central Hobart: a precinct where education, enterprise and innovation exist under the same roof. Imagine emerging businesses working in cyber security, artificial intelligence, digital design, advanced manufacturing, marine technology, creative industries, professional services and new construction methods. We could have businesses developing technology for the Antarctic and Southern Ocean sectors, new approaches to modular and affordable housing, software to help small businesses become more efficient, or products improving accessibility for older people and people with disability. Alongside them could be accountants, marketers, software specialists, business advisers and mentors helping those businesses move from an idea to something capable of employing people. That is not simply office accommodation. That is economic infrastructure. Hobart already has organisations supporting entrepreneurs and emerging businesses. What we need more of is connection between those businesses, education and the people developing the skills our future economy will require. Campbell Street could provide that connection. Students could be learning accounting, business and technology in the same building as businesses needing exactly those skills. A bookkeeping student might gain their first client. An IT student might gain their first job. A business might identify a skills shortage and work directly with TAFE trainers to develop a new short course. Businesses could provide real-world projects for students, while experienced trainers could provide specialist education and support to emerging enterprises. Some students may eventually decide not merely to look for a job, but to create one. That is how an ecosystem develops. There is also a financial argument. I understand the attraction of commercial rent. Empty government property costs money, and taxpayers rightly expect public assets to be used productively. But rent is only one form of return. If an innovation precinct helps create successful businesses that eventually employ dozens or hundreds of people, the economic return could be far greater than simply leasing a floor as office accommodation. Additionally the staff in TAFE could supply direct support to the innovative hub directly – saving huge costs in consultative support costs. Commercial discipline and innovation do not need to be opposites. Some businesses could begin with supported accommodation, then move onto commercial arrangements as they grow. Successful businesses should ultimately graduate into the wider market, making room for the next generation. TAFE also brings something no ordinary landlord can offer: teachers, students, training infrastructure and decades of accumulated expertise. Emerging businesses bring something TAFE needs equally badly: direct exposure to the changing skills demands of the real economy. Put the two together and both become stronger. Hobart’s future depends on keeping our young people here, creating better careers, supporting small business and diversifying our economy. Here is an opportunity to put those ambitions into bricks and mortar. Instead of allowing unused education space to become government department offices, we could create a place where a student walks in to learn a profession, an entrepreneur walks in with an idea, and a business walks in needing expertise. And somewhere between those three things, a new Tasmanian company may be born.