Let me begin with a little history.
Throughout my business life and property development career I've had some passions that stand out. They are skilling, community and building for people.
To expand on the work begun in Lend Lease in these areas, but in a broader constituency, shareholders and employees funded the establishment of The Hornery Institute on my retirement a few years ago.
The Institute's Charter is quite simple. We want to help make communities better places to live, work, learn and play. A community is any group of people whose common interests include learning and place making. It may be a community of office workers, young families in a new suburb, or a disadvantaged group living in a remote location.
The Institute is a doing organisation and its capabilities have developed through working on many projects in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, and include:
These capabilities stem from the Institute's three initial areas of endeavour.
The first is our ability to improve a community's access to learning, skilling and employment. This builds on the very successful work carried out by the ACTU - Lend Lease Foundation which is now incorporated in the Institute.
The second concerns the place we inhabit. Making great places is neither obvious nor easy. They are not products but experiences where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This can only be achieved where the social and environmental practices are given as much attention as the bricks and mortar.
Thirdly, the Institute helps establish processes which will enable communities to contribute effectively to the outcomes they also help to define.
Our work in all these areas is underpinned by good research, of all kinds, local and global, to allow us to enhance the social and economic potential of communities.
Kate and I welcome you to The Hornery Institute and hope you find our work as exciting as we do.
Stuart Hornery