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Kylie Rampa
- For every asset we consider, resilience is a major focus during due diligence.
- This approach necessitates close collaboration with the insurance sector, as we’re deliberate about where we deploy capital.
- Productivity is critical for Queensland and Australia and is one of the strongest drivers of economic growth and improved living standards.
- We’ve seen productivity growth decline over the decades: from 2.2% in the 1990s to 1.1% in the 2010s, and it’s now a central focus for the federal Treasurer.
- But this isn’t just the government’s problem - it’s a whole-of-economy challenge that will
require collective effort to solve.
- There are three main levers for productivity improvement:
1. Technological advancement - especially AI and digital capabilities. For comparison,
unlike the ASX, where top companies include banks and miners, the S&P 500 is
dominated by tech giants. We have a massive opportunity to apply tech across
businesses of all sizes to boost customer satisfaction, efficiency and ROI.
2. Human capital development - Queensland’s entrepreneurial culture is a huge
asset, with 97% of businesses being small or family-run. Population growth is
another driver. But we need to ensure education aligns with the skills and technical
capabilities needed in the future.
3. Capital investment - there are great opportunities, especially through the 2032
Olympics and public-private partnerships in infrastructure and housing.
- Ultimately, we must stop relying solely on government and take shared responsibility for
driving productivity gains.
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Bridget Messer
- I strongly agree that productivity is everyone’s responsibility.
- One lever we have is becoming more risk-based and proportionate - in regulation, internal processes and in how we make investment decisions.
- We should focus our energy on high-risk areas and streamline lower risk matters to enable faster action. It’s also critical to consider the risk of not doing anything at all.
- In uncertain times, the instinct is to retreat and reinforce risk barriers, but many of those
barriers already aren’t proportionate to actual risk.
- At Suncorp, we’re moving toward a multi-speed, risk-based approach - prioritising high
impact areas and letting lower-risk processes flow more quickly through automation and
system support
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Kate Farrar
- We are lucky to have productivity actively on the agenda both federally and at the state level. For example, the presence of the Productivity Commission here is a great asset.
- One important point not yet discussed is the focus on deregulation and cutting red tape.
- The state government has established a task force in the local government area specifically aimed at reducing regulatory burden.
- It’s fantastic to see government asking what they can do - and it reminds us that we, in
the private sector, must also ask what we can do to drive productivity.
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Bruce Rush
- Talent is central to productivity, and Queensland has a strong reputation for nurturing young talent through its universities and education system.
- However, Queensland produces 1 in 5 of Australia’s tech graduates but only offers 1 in 7 tech jobs - so we’re exporting highly skilled talent.
- That mismatch is likely true across other skilled professions like law, finance and business.
- There are three key opportunities for Queensland to address this:
1. Collaboration with universities will be needed to define future job pathways and
ensure graduates have clear career opportunities from day one. ANZ is investing $5
million in Queensland university partnerships to support this.
2. Targeted skills development, focused on building capabilities in strategic areas like
cloud computing, cybersecurity, AI, sustainable finance, legal and business services.
3. Better promotion of the state’s capabilities, particularly of Queensland’s financial
services sector.
- QFI and the wider industry have a big opportunity to amplify and leverage Queensland’s
existing talent and economic strength.
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Is Queensland different to what it was when you were younger?
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Kylie Rampa
- The finance industry in Queensland has transformed dramatically in recent years.
- Institutions like QIC are rare and represent a major talent magnet; the creation of ART and Brighter Super further exemplifies Queensland’s financial strength.
- The ANZ acquisition of Suncorp Bank and the broader growth of head office roles here also reflects a shift - Queensland is no longer selling lifestyle alone, but genuine strategic and global advantages.
- Our universities are producing outstanding graduates, and that access to high-quality talent is critical to building deep capabilities aligned with Queensland’s economic strengths.
- We’ve moved beyond attracting people just for lifestyle - now we must meet market expectations on pay and provide compelling career development and growth opportunities.
- Attracting and retaining top talent means offering competitive remuneration and clearly
demonstrating the value of building a career in Queensland.
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How can we create opportunities for young professionals which attract and retain
talent in Queensland?
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Kate Farrar
- QFI’s graduate program, led by Kylie through the Queensland Finance Council, is to directly address the challenge of talent retention in Queensland.
- Early research from the Council highlighted that while financial services opportunities are strong here, retaining talent - especially straight out of university - is a major hurdle.
- Queensland is the second-largest exporter of education after Victoria. So, it makes sense to bring this sector together with financial services.
- QFI’s first initiative was the executive program to build public-private sector understanding - crucial for state and economic growth.
- We’re now building a QFI graduate program, with Karina leading its development, focused on rotating graduates across major financial institutions represented on this panel.
- This program will provide a world-class foundation for financial services careers, allowing graduates to stay in Brisbane - close to their families and communities - and contribute meaningfully to Queensland’s economy long-term
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As industry leaders, where are you currently on your generative AI journey, and what is top of mind for you when thinking about how it will impact your business over the next year?
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Bruce Rush
- I recently visited San Francisco and saw how technology like self-driving cars and taxis are already transforming daily life.
- Considering this adoption and potential, every financial services organisation should be investing in artificial intelligence.
- Of course, there must be guidelines and clear limitations on how this technology is used.
- One immediate area of opportunity is using AI to automate laborious tasks - like reviewing long documents and pinpointing specific paragraphs or sentences.
- Applying AI to repetitive, time-consuming work can help to boost efficiency and free up
human capacity.
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Steve Laidlaw
- AI is essential. In banking, over 99% of our interactions are now digital.
- We’re investing $250 million into our tech program and partnering with tier-one providers like Salesforce, FiServ, and Backbase, who are each investing billions in AI.
- As a smaller institution, we need to leverage these partnerships to stay competitive.
- AI isn’t just about productivity gains - it’s also a major driver of customer experience and
improved Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
- Another opportunity is agentic AI, where AI acts like a personal agent - for example, like a travel planner which handles everything from flights to accommodation to pricing.
- If you apply this concept to banking - like buying a home - AI could make the process
seamless and intuitive.
- If you’re not actively investing in and integrating AI, you’re facing a serious strategic risk.
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Is sustainable finance everything that you hope it will be?
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Kate Farrar
- I see tremendous opportunity for Queensland in sustainable finance moving forward.
- A QFI Finance Council report identified sustainable finance as the number one opportunity to develop a world-class financial services sector in Queensland.
- This is largely due to Queensland’s unique strength at the intersection of agriculture and
financial services - few regions can combine these sectors as effectively.
- Brighter Super is close to announcing a new investment in an agriculture business as part of our additional $500 million Queensland investment commitment.
- Over the past six months, I’ve seen first-hand the impressive skills and commercial opportunities here to build a genuine ecosystem around sustainable finance.
- In agriculture alone, there are revenue streams from carbon credits, biodiversity offsets
and reef offsets.
- QTC is the largest semi-government issuer of green bonds in Australia, with about $7 billion outstanding.
- On the energy front, Queensland is a major player in renewables. Australia ranks seventh
globally for renewable opportunity, but a developer recently ranked Queensland third.
- Since 2015, $11 billion has already been invested in renewable energy in Queensland, with $61 billion more in the pipeline.
- This is a substantial, well-structured, return-generating opportunity in continued investment in sustainable finance. If we grow our sustainability and natural capital skills, we can truly mature the market alongside it.
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What’s holding us back from faster progress in this space?
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David Anderson
- From an Australian Retirement Trust perspective, we’re absolute experts at evaluating and responding to investment opportunities, but not necessarily strong deal originators.
- Strong partnerships and early engagement from origination are critical.
- Additionally, clearly understanding the frameworks and outcomes required for us to deploy capital is crucial.
- This allows us to take advantage of the opportunities enabled by better identification of
investment prospects and closer collaboration to ensure the right conditions are in place
to attract capital.
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Kylie Rampa
- Many of these sectors - such as natural capital and biodiversity - are still relatively new for institutional capital in Australia.
- While they’re well-established in offshore markets, they often fall between categories like real estate and infrastructure here, making them harder to define and finance.
- As an industry, we’re on a journey to better understand and support these types of investments, which are a huge opportunity for Queensland as these sectors align directly with our economy and are globally significant.
- Additionally, the agricultural sector benefits from strong drivers such as growing demand
for food and land security.
- Australia can’t meet its net zero targets without Queensland’s biodiversity credits - someone has to generate those carbon credits, and Queensland has the natural assets
to do it.
- This is a uniquely Queensland opportunity, with national and global importance.
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Steve Laidlaw
- Mutual banks have a strong history of investing in communities and acting responsibly on environmental and social fronts.
- For us, this is a key point of differentiation. Our target market is made up of customers and corporates who care about doing business with organisations that have a strong social conscience.
- We estimate around 22% of the market - especially younger Australians - actively prefer to engage with values-aligned institutions.
- That presents a huge opportunity for Queensland, particularly as this younger demographic grows.
- While there’s some pushback - especially in the U.S., against what some call “woke” policies - I believe this is just common sense.
- For example, Tesla is a good example of a brand which was once seen as progressive brand, but has lost alignment with certain values and subsequently damaged its appeal.
- In banking, when institutions step away from net zero goals, especially due to political shifts like the potential return of Trump, it sends a message - and not always a good one.
- We’ll stay true to our roots, and I believe the other organisations on this panel will too.
This is a huge opportunity for Queensland.
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David Anderson
- I completely agree - you can’t step back from your values or from doing the right thing. If you do, you deserve to be remembered for it - and that’s not the legacy we want.
- We’ve spent a lot of time in the U.S. over the past year, engaging at both federal and state/local levels.
- Most of the viable investment opportunities for institutions like ours are found at the state and local levels - not the federal level.
- We’ve found the policy settings at those levels to be far more stable and consistent with
what they’ve been over the past 30-40 years.
- As such, by focusing on the detail, and not being distracted by high-level ideological debates, we’ve gained greater clarity and confidence in the U.S. market.
- That’s what gives us the conviction to continue committing capital there.
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| AUDIENCE QUESTIONS |
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It’s not always easy for an Australian company to scale globally while maintaining a strong local
presence. Could you share more about your global strategy, how Queensland-based firms can
contribute to broader economic growth, and the key challenges you’re encountering - whether around market access or regulatory headwinds from federal or state government?
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Kylie Rampa
- In a vast global market, being highly targeted and understanding your competitive advantage is essential.
- At QIC, we initially expanded offshore in infrastructure because Australia was already leading globally in that space - thanks to early adopters like Macquarie and strong domestic super funds.
- This allowed us to export our expertise and onboard international clients. For example, we now manage European private equity investments for a Danish client.
- We only expand where we can compete effectively, offer something unique and put boots on the ground with a clear focus.
- However, our primary focus remains on attracting domestic and foreign capital into Australia.
- Entering early into energy transition investments offshore has strengthened our capabilities and informed our approach to Australian opportunities.
- Our investment strategy always aims to either scale our capability through knowledge
and relationships, or deliver something uniquely valuable to the market.
- From a government perspective, our view is that it’s up to us to support government, not
the other way around.
- As QIC advises the Queensland government, their role as a strategic, stable stakeholder enables us to invest in future capabilities and projects that ultimately benefit them too.
- Global investors appreciate the stability and governance of our structure - they view QIC as a market participant, not a government agent, which boosts confidence.
- Opportunities like Psi Quantum are rare and demonstrate the unique capability-building potential that government partnerships help make possible.
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Everyone’s spoken about the positive opportunities of rapid AI adoption. But from both a banking and superannuation perspective, how are you helping clients protect themselves against rising AI
related risks such as fraud and cyberattacks? What do you see as the key downsides or vulnerabilities
emerging from this technology shift?
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Bruce Rush
- From a fraud and scam perspective, the number one rule is simple: if you receive an
unexpected email or text - don’t click the link.
- Our best defence is continuous communication of this key common-sense tenet - by sharing case studies with customers, training frontline staff and staying alert to scam tactics.
- AI may amplify these risks, but awareness, common sense and open conversation
across society are the strongest protections we have.
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Bridget Messer
- The key to controlling AI risk is to use AI itself.
- We’re currently reviewing our control environment for deploying AI at scale and have found that the best way to detect fraud is with other AI models trained for that purpose.
- However, there is a risk that Australia could end up just as a taker, not a maker, in the AI
value chain.
- We need to identify areas where we can leverage our intellectual strengths, resource expertise or infrastructure capabilities to become creators in the value chain.
- For example, in general insurance, AI offers huge potential because we’re fortunate to
have vast amounts of data - an environment where this technology works well.
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Steve Laidlaw
- You have to fight fire with fire when it comes to AI and cybersecurity.
- The tools we now have - like behavioural biometrics based on keystrokes, tone of voice and the ability to analyse massive datasets - are incredibly powerful for detecting patterns humans can’t.
- It will always be a game of cat and mouse, but the goal is to make yourself a much harder target than others.
- Right now, the banking sector is likely at the forefront of making itself a difficult target, and that’s where we all need to be.
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How actively is the finance sector involved with the universities in ensuring we are prepared for
Quantum and AI?
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David Anderson
- It is the role of finance industry leaders to be much clearer with universities about which
capabilities, competencies and skills are genuinely valuable, and at what scale.
- The view that “it’s on us” should be used to drive decision-making and thinking across any area.
- We need to take a view and communicate where the real capability gaps are and what
will have the biggest impact on growth and productivity.
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Bruce Rush
- The sector’s thinking needs to be targeted - especially in Queensland and probably across Australia more broadly.
- We don’t have the scale to be great at everything, so we need to focus on the areas where we can excel. Once we identify those focus areas, we should double down on them and collaborate closely with universities to build the right capabilities.
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Kate Farrar
- It’s not just about universities - we need to start earlier in the education journey.
- You can’t have effective degree programs without students entering them in the first place.
- One issue often overlooked in this debate is Australia’s declining numeracy levels,
which is deeply concerning.
- Numeracy is fundamental to everything we do in financial services, so that’s where we
need to start if we want to build long-term capability.
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Kylie Rampa
- One of the big challenges universities face is the long lead time required to develop capabilities. For example, the skills for becoming AI engineers will become high-demand
skills that industry urgently needs.
- Universities, corporates and government must come together to identify these priority areas and work out how to generate these skills and foster talent right here in Queensland.
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Steve Laidlaw
- There is a major disconnect - many university students still aim for traditional careers
like doctors, lawyers and accountants.
- University entry scores for critical future fields like AI, cybersecurity and data science are currently quite low.
- In South Australia, you basically just need to matriculate to get into these courses - even though they’re where the biggest business opportunities lie in the future.
- It’s surprising that these aren’t seen as aspirational careers, given the enormous demand ahead.
- There’s clearly a gap between what universities offer, what students pursue and what the market needs.
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Bridget Messer
- There’s never been a more important time to foster critical thinking.
- While technical skills are essential and will drive future value, we must ensure our schools and universities are also producing critical thinkers; this is just as important as building technical capability
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