30.06.2020Annual Member Survey Results released
Members respond to COVID-19 and set priorities for the future
Through collaboration with Government, civic leaders and the broader community, we strive to protect our community’s future prosperity. In our annual member priorities survey, powered by IPSOS, we interview our members to help shape our advocacy agenda, ensuring our members’ vision for the Committee is met.
The survey results inform our strategic planning for the 2020/2021 year and beyond and also assist us with specific member engagement priorities.
This year, the survey focused on the current COVID-19 crisis and helped us plan our ‘Covid-19 Road to Recovery’ agenda, understanding how to best to influence a return to the vibrant and safe city we all take pride in and assist our members in any way we can.
We again benchmarked members’ opinions on Greater Melbourne’s progress with the Committee’s key focus areas of Future Economy; Urban Optimisation; Infrastructure; and Livability (prior to the pandemic).
Whilst it was felt there had been some pre COVID–19 progress in the areas of Future Economy, Infrastructure and Livability, the area of Urban optimisation continues to be of greatest concern.
More particularly, our members ranked sustainability/climate change (55%) as a primary concern, followed by, transport (38%), and the arts (31%). In a first for our survey, the tourism/visitor economy (30%) and unemployment (27%) also received high rankings.
The survey reflects a clear understanding of the economic impact of Covid-19 and the long road to recovery we face. It also helps set our agenda for Melbourne’s strategic needs and our subsequent focus.
In better times we would be sharing our future focus at our Annual Dinner, but this will have to wait.
In the meantime, members are welcome to receive briefings on these findings and discuss how you can become involved in our advocacy program. Please contact Clive Dwyer Director of Engagement.
Click here for research report detail and infographic
Here is what our members had to say
- Overwhelmingly, respondents agreed their organisations had received impact from COVID-19 already (89%); 4% felt it was too early to tell and 7% felt there had been very little (or no) impact.
- Worryingly, around a third (32%) told us the pandemic has resulted in a major impact on their organisation (including cancelled contracts, redundancies etc.).
- Looking forward to June 2021, respondents appear to have divergent views on their organisation’s prospects, with 28% believing things were likely to improve; 25% to deteriorate; 22% to stay the same (22%) and 24% saying it felt too early to make a call on future prospects.
- Looking ahead, respondents told us there was a range of areas the Committee should concentrate on to improve future Melbourne. When asked to pick the top three advocacy areas,
- sustainability/climate change was the most identified area (55%), followed by
- transport (38%),
- the arts (31%).
- Tourism/Visitor Economy (30%) and
- unemployment (27%)
- Aside from the pandemic, we sought to identify the areas that respondents believed have been most progressed in Greater Melbourne in the Committee’s four areas of focus.
- Infrastructure: the strongest performing of the four areas with almost a quarter (23%) reporting there has been sufficient progress, and a further 63% saying there had been some progress
- Livability: one-in-five (20%) thought there had been sufficient progress; 57% believed some progress had been made.
- Future Economy: three quarters (84%) said Greater Melbourne is making progress (70% some and 16% sufficient).
- Urban optimisation: while more than one-in-ten (12%) reported there had been sufficient progress, this was the weakest performing area. More than a quarter (27%) felt there had not been progress made in this area.