Long-term senior public servant joins the SA Property Council
EXCLUSIVE: One of the state’s most senior public servants has announced she will join the Property Council of Australia’s SA branch as deputy executive director, InDaily can reveal.
After more than a quarter of a century in the public service, the deputy chief executive of the Department for Housing and urban Development has announced she will join the Property Council of Australia’s South Australian arm as deputy executive director.
Sally Smith – who was instrumental in developing the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan (GARP) and the creation of the electronic planning system – will work with executive director Bruce Djite on what she thinks are the most pressing issues facing the sector and bring a solutions-based perspective to the organisation.
Smith has been deputy chief executive of the Department of Housing and Urban Development for almost a year and is also the general manager of planning and development in the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure.
She’s been working in the public service for more than 25 years now, having started her career as a planner for the Singleton Shire Council, before moving up the ranks to work with the Queensland Government’s Department of Infrastructure and Planning.
She joined the South Australian government in 2009, is a Public Service Medal recipient, and told InDaily “now’s the time” for her to make the career move.
“If I was going to do something different, now’s the time,” she said.
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“I oversaw the development of the new planning system, and I wanted to see through all the instruments.
“It felt like we’ve got the number one planning system in Australia, we’ve finished implementing everything, Marc Voortman’s come in from Mount Barker for the last year and a half behind me in terms of succession planning, so the place is left in good hands.”
She said that after 26 years in the planning and police side of the industry that “I can still do some good stuff working with government, working with Bruce and his people, get good reforms happening here but seeing it from the other side”.
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She said she was proudest of helping implement the electronic planning system and the GARP.
“I’ve been involved in regional plans before. I was involved with the 30-year plan back in 2010. They were both published paper-based documents,” she said.
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“Having it in electronic form and being able to update it as often as we need to, so it’s not set in stone, I think is brilliant. I can genuinely hand on heart say that.”
In moving to the Property Council, Smith said she hoped to bring some of her solutions-based thinking out of government.
“Let’s actually work with government on what some actual solutions are. It’s always left to government to come up with the solutions.
“I’m hoping that we might be able to not just identify problems but work through how we can fix things. Certainly, on my side of the fence for the last umpteen years, just reading things saying ‘we need to do better’ and not having any real solutions… It does get a bit grating.”
She said she would assist the Property Council’s SA branch in pushing for more serviced employment land and CBD reforms.
“You’ve got Adelaide City Council with their City Plan, we know apartments are super expensive to build, but we need more people living in the city,” she said.
“We need more vibrancy. We need a better public realm. I think that needs ot be a strong focus.
“There’s a real opportunity to work with council and government on how we get the CBD to the next level.”
Executive director Bruce Djite said, “it is fantastic to be able to attract a talent such as Sally Smith to the Property Council family”.
“A well-connected, highly intelligent and respected strategic policy brain who will add tremendously to our advocacy and policy engine,” he said.
“This is a real coup for Property Council members.”
