Alex O'Mara

Caitlin Morrissey

What do you see as being The DNA of Sydney? What are some of its traits or attributes might be, and where you think those have come from?

Alex O'Mara

Well, I think Sydney benefits from its incredible First Nations culture. I think Sydney is a place where both old and young come together in the sense that if you think about Sydney, it's a place where it benefits from 60,000 years of one of the oldest living cultures in the world. And I think, in a way, Australians are only really starting to come to grips with the depth and beauty of that culture and what that really means for us as a community. And then on the other side, in some ways, we're a very young city in the sense that, I think, we're still finding our strengths, and there's this real sense of energy and brashness and confidence. If I think about the Mardi Gras, and I think about what it means to live in Sydney and be in Sydney, I think there's a real sense of fun and risk, in a way, like we're a bit more edgy than maybe other parts of Australia. I think there's a sort of brashness and confidence about Sydney that's lovely, and it makes it a great place to live, you know.

I think if you think about the way we live in Sydney, it really responds to our environment. So we're a city in a park, I think. Half of our city is open space. We're connected to the water in a really profound way, I think, with these beautiful rivers sort of winding their way through the city and our beaches, and I think, in some ways, sort of what we're known for is these sort of iconic beaches. But there are so many other beautiful public spaces that Sydneysiders connect to. And actually, during COVID, I think there's been this real opportunity to connect to our public spaces and rediscover them. And so because of the COVID restrictions, not everybody could go to Bondi or the sort of iconic places you might ordinarily go, and we've really rediscovered these beautiful parklands, beaches, rivers.

I think our climate means that we can really live a lovely kind of outdoors lifestyle where we're connected to nature as well. You know, the bush, our biodiversity, that kind of thing. Do you want me to pause or keep going? There's more I could talk about.

Caitlin Morrissey

Keep going if you want to. This is brilliant.

Alex O'Mara

I mean, there's just a few other things that I think are really quintessentially kind of Sydney. I think one of the things that I love about Sydney is the kind of incredible mix of cultures. So one of my favourite places to go for dinner is Harris Park, where you get the most incredible Indian food, and that's like five-minutes’ drive from my house, or if you want to go for Vietnamese, maybe we might head to Cabramatta. Where I live, there's an incredible Italian migrant community that came in after the war, and we still benefit from amazing coffee, amazing bread. So I just think Sydney is one of those places where there's so many different pockets of multiculturalism, and what's really interesting, I think, is as generations evolve, you get that re-fusion of cultures.

So I think we have incredible food in Sydney. And I really think one of the reasons for that is because of all of the incredible migration that's happened, in that sort of cultures fizzing off each other, and really makes it interesting and, I think, makes us globally connected in a really sort of local way. So lots of different communities connected to other countries across the world, and that makes it a really interesting place to be. And I think when you bring all of those things together, that incredibly old living culture, that sort of sense of mix of cultures that's happened in the last few generations or really since Sydney began-- you know, we've always been a place where new people are arriving.

And then those beautiful bones of the city, that sort of outdoor lifestyle, great climate, natural beauty, lots of beautiful open space and then that sort of, I think, youthful, playful sense of fun that you get in Sydney, I think it makes it a really great place to live. I love living here.

Caitlin Morrissey

That was fantastic. And to pick back up on the idea or the points you were making about place and space, what is the role of newer spaces in kind of mediating and bringing together this huge mix of culture that you can find in the city? Do public spaces-- do they have that function?

Alex O'Mara

Absolutely. So, I think in Sydney, so much of it is public space, which is fabulous, but one of the things I think we could do better at is linking it up. So if you think about, for example, our harbour and the Parramatta River, for example, there's lots of pockets of parks and things along that river, but we could do a lot better at creating kind of cycleways or joined-up public space.

And that's one of the things that the Government Architect's Office came up with, this concept of the Blue-Green Grid connecting up the city. And recently, we've created this entity called the Greater Sydney Parklands, which is sort of charged with doing that, which is charged with bringing that sense of the Green Grid to life and finding better ways to connect up our public spaces so that people can enjoy them in a more integrated way. So there's always opportunities to do better, and I think what's exciting is kind of understanding the local places.

And I think, across the world, one of the things that's come from COVID is that sense of your local community. And one of the things we've been doing in Sydney, we've had this priority given to us from government about improve walkable access to quality public space across the state, lift that by 10% within four years. And it's the first time we've had a Minister for Public Space. And so we've really been looking at, what public space is there, picking up on the UN Global Toolkit and the UN definition of public space and then asking people to tell us what places they love, where could we improve. And that's really given us our writing instructions for where we go from here.

And I think one thing that is really interesting to me is the different forms of public space and how they each make a really important contribution. So I think, often, we go straight to open space, and particularly in Sydney because there's so much of it, and we're outdoors so much. But I think cultural space is another really important form of public space, as is kind of roads, plazas, that kind of thing. So if you think about cultural space-- I think, again, people kind of go to the iconic things like the Opera House, which is incredible, but I think Sydney has a really diverse cultural offer and that really emerges from the diversity of its community. And some of the most interesting cultural expressions are happening in Western Sydney in places like Casula Powerhouse and Campbelltown Art Gallery. I mean, so many examples of great art, music, cultural expression. And I think Sydney could do a better job of explaining to other people how rich its cultural offer is. I think sometimes we just sort of rest on the laurels of the Opera House and beautiful beaches, and we don't kind of tell that broader story.

I mean, I know one of the things we worked with you and Greg on was, how do we tell a bolder story for Sydney and really explain what actually is happening here? And even if you think about traditional forms of culture, most of the cultural institutions that are based in Sydney were the first ones. You know, the Museums of Sydney, the Australian Museum, the Art Gallery were the sort of foundational cultural institutions in Australia. And in a way, Sydney does play this really key role as the gateway to the world, I think. A lot of people coming to Australia come through Sydney, and it's our springboard to the rest of the world. But I think as we grow-- and particularly if you think about our relationship with Asia. There's some really interesting Asian art happening in Sydney, and it's another way for us to connect to people internationally, but also to our local community.

And in terms of our public space work, we're always looking at ways for culture to enable place. I think it's such an important part of placemaking and reimagining place and creating new places because it's one of the things that makes places vibrant. So if you think about even wanting to attract investment to a city, I think culture's really key. And, if you think about how you build communities, things like libraries, those kinds of things are a really important part of bringing people together.

One of the things we've been really focused on during COVID is that sort of third bucket of public space which is around streets, plazas, public domain. And I think when we went into lockdown one of the things I think people started to value was public life and public space because it had been taken away from them, and it gave us all pause for the kind of thought about how important that is. And one of the things I missed most was that sort of element of surprise in public domain because when you're in your own home, you're controlling everything that happens. And even if you think about your walk in the morning with your-- every morning, I walk with my dog, and you never know who you're going to run into and often, it's other dogs or other people. There's always something different happening.

I think if you think about people's attachment to place, it can be more about their sort of experience in a place and what's happened to them in that place or what's happening now than the physical attributes of the place. And so that sense of, how do we create more space for people to connect? And if you think about streets, that's one of the biggest forms of public space in Sydney and in a lot of cities, and we did a lot of work to try and turn more of those streets into public space that people could use when access to the outdoors was restricted.

So one of the things we did was this program called Streets as Shared Space where we essentially put out a funding run very quickly to councils across the city saying, give us your best ideas about how you can use your streets innovatively. And that was really important, I think, for Sydney because we are such a car-based city. In some ways, we're quite like L.A., in the sense that a lot of our streets are kind of-- not very wide footpaths, you know. There's essentially cars parking and then the pedestrians are kind of crammed on the side on the footpath. So it gave us a real opportunity to kind of test new things. And I think with a pilot, often what you get is people going ‘Oh, I really love this’ and ‘Why can't we keep doing it?’ So we're doing great.

In some ways, I think some of the things we've been talking about-- about how Sydneysiders are very relaxed and easy-going, and they love to be outside, and they're very playful-- we're really responding to that during COVID with things like the outdoor dining pilot in The Rocks.

Now, normally, The Rocks is full of tourists. You couldn't get in there. In summer, it'd be absolutely jam-packed with people taking photos. And one of the lovely things that's happened during COVID is locals rediscovering those beautiful parts of the city and really embracing them as places that they'd just like to go and have a drink or have a meal. You know, most people I know would not normally go to The Rocks on a Saturday night because we kind of connect that with a place that tourists go. I think there is a real opportunity now for us to reimagine those places as local places, and I think that'll give them even more vitality.

Caitlin Morrissey

I agree with so much of what you've been saying. It’s so interesting to hear you connect those parts of Sydney's DNA with all of the work that you're doing in the shared streets and bringing out that love of living in or enjoying the outside, meeting outside and being alfresco. I want to come back to some of the points that you made about all of the different cultures in Sydney and to ask you whether there is one Sydney or whether there are many Sydney's?

Alex O'Mara

Yeah, well, I think there's many Sydney's because each person's experience of the city is different, and your attachment to the city, as I said, comes from the way you've experienced the city, both its physical kind of characteristics but also the way you engage with that city and your local community, particularly because of its multicultural kind of nature. I think that's one of the things that makes it like, in a way, a city of villages, a city of different pockets of culture. It's one of the things I love about it, that you can kind of cross the city and find different experiences, different food, different people.

But then I also think there is this sense of a city and what it is to be someone who lives in Sydney. I mean, there is this real move to-- and you know, it's interesting, I was talking to the chief planner in Singapore. They're doing something similar. I think Sydney had been, particularly because of its transport system, a city that was very focused on the CBD. And if you think about the Three Cities plan that the Greater Sydney Commission developed, that was really trying to move to a 30-minute city to give people a better lifestyle, essentially, so that you could work within 30 minutes of where you live and sort of rebalancing the city from everybody travelling in and out to the CBD to an Eastern Harbour City, a Central River City and a Western Parkland City. So I think that sort of thinking, that is more about us planning for how we're going, how we want Sydney to evolve in a very considered way that's responding to the landscape and responding to our infrastructure. So I think that's more like a strategic planning kind of frame than a way a Sydneysider would describe the city.

I'm not sure that people, yet, who live in Parramatta think of themselves as, you know, 'I live in the Central River City', but people in Parramatta love Parramatta. They love the river, people like David Borger. So I think that's what's great about Sydney: people are passionate about different bits of it, and the reasons they're attached to it have most to do with what's happening in that part of the city for them. And I think activation is so important because I think it's those shared experiences that really form community, and they are so connected to place and your memories of being in a place. So that's one of the ways that you really build community. So to answer your question, I think there's lots of different communities within Sydney, but then there is one city, I think, that Sydney that people love.

And I think it does have this real identity that's different to other cities and to me, also thinking about, what is it about Sydney that makes it different? And in some ways, I think it's the layering. It's no one thing, but I think it's the sort of layering of 60,000 years of living culture with that beautiful cultural diversity, with that beautiful landscape, outdoor culture and that sense of energy and fun and sort of brashness that comes with Sydney. To me, it's all of that together that makes it a really unique offer.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much for these fantastic answers. You mentioned how Sydney has evolved and changed through waves of migration, and I'd love to ask you about what it is that draws people to the city?

Alex O'Mara

Well, I do think there's something about Sydney that is about creative freedom or freedom of expression. And particularly if you think about where we're positioned in the Asia-Pacific, I think maybe that is a point of difference, in the sense that we're a huge attractor for international students. And I wonder whether that's one of the reasons that they say Sydney is a place where there is a real sense of creative freedom, freedom of expression.

I think we're a city where diversity is-- you know, we're not perfect, and we certainly have a long way to go in terms of truly embracing and celebrating our First Nation's culture, but I think we're starting to really understand - I certainly am - just how incredibly rich that is and what we all have, how we can all benefit from having a stronger connection to Country and understanding that deep connection that Aboriginal people have to their Country.

I do think there's a sense of possibility in Sydney. I mean, some people might argue with this, but I think compared to other cities I've lived in, there's less of a sense of class in Australia. And I think there is a sense that you can sort of-- not make you but that there's-- it's a place where you can create a future for yourself. It's not a very rigid class-based structure. We're a pretty informal city. Because we have benefited from so much migration and there is this real sense of diversity, I think maybe people feel less isolated by being from somewhere different. And often because we have all these different communities in Sydney, if you're a migrant, there's a place where you can go and feel like you're at home in Sydney.

And I mean, it's the biggest economy in Australia and I think, you know, it's a really, really strong economy. I think there's huge economic opportunities at the moment with our links to Asia, and the government's investing heavily in infrastructure that connects us better globally. If you think about the Western Parkland City, that sort of catalytic investment with the airport and the rail infrastructure to connect that to other parts of New South Wales, other parts of Sydney-- mean that import-export-- there's lots of ways that you can create income. So I think a lot of people want to live in Sydney because they know that it's going to be easier to get a job than in other parts of Australia.

And then I think there's just that sense of, it's a lovely place to live. And it genuinely is. Now, I've lived in other cities around the world, but in Australia, I've only ever lived in Sydney. I can't tear myself away. I mean, there's not many places in the world where you can kind of swim at the beach in the morning and then be in the CBD within 20 minutes.

I think it's that sense of laid-back fun, open lifestyle, great food, lovely people and a real sense of, I think, welcoming and inclusion. I think that is one of the things about Sydney: you can be yourself, and you'll be accepted. I mean, that's one of the things I hope is kind of part of our DNA, that we're very welcoming of different perspectives and that sense of creative freedom means that people feel they can be who they are in our city.

Caitlin Morrissey

I'm going to jump to our question about myths and whether there are common stories or things that unite people from Sydney or stories that they tell, whether there are any of those that come to mind?

Alex O'Mara

I mean, I think there are myths about Sydney that don't do us any favours, in the sense that I think there's a sort of narrative about Sydney that it's all about the Opera House and the beaches. That means that people miss out on some of the most interesting and beautiful parts of the city. So I think the people who come and visit sort of tick off the iconic things to do, but actually, the magic of Sydney is much deeper than that. And to really understand the DNA of the city, you have to venture out of the CBD. So I think it's an incredibly rich and beautiful and diverse city, but we could do better at helping people understand what it is to live in Sydney and where the real magic is.

I'm just thinking. I mean, one of the things that comes to mind is - and, again, this is probably not a positive kind of myth but that sense of-- and this is part of our coming to terms with our past. If you think about our First Nation's past, we've just had 200 years since the British arrived in Australia-- that sort of unravelling the stories of how Sydney was settled by the British, what's been great is understanding more about Aboriginal people's perspective on that.

So when I went to school, I was taught that Captain Cook arrived in the boat, and there was no one here. There was some natives, and they were living in huts. But actually, this year I went out to La Perouse, where that first landing happened, with the La Perouse Aboriginal community and listen to their stories that are being passed on through their community about their experience, and it was a very different story. So a community that had been living in that place for many, many years and many, many thousands of years and not, in fact, a place where there was no one here but a place where people really felt a connection to their Country, and still do, and the impact of that on their community and what that must have been like for them.

And I suppose it's really important for us as Australians to understand that and see that other perspective and think about how we can enable that culture and celebrate its future. And I think understanding that other perspective and sort of unpacking that simplistic narrative that maybe we were taught - not to show my age, but 50 years ago or whatever it is - I think that's really important to us moving forward as a joined-up culture. I think until we really come to grips with that, we won't really move forward together.

And so they've done this beautiful sculpture-- one of our First Nations artists called Alison Page-- at the landing point at Kamay Bay. It's like a whale. Whalebones that sit on the rocks on the water, and there's sort of carvings in there about what their people would have been thinking. And apparently, there were fires lit all the way up the coast of New South Wales when the British arrived. So there was this really sophisticated way of them telling other communities about it, and there was a genuine attempt by a lot of Aboriginal communities to engage with the British. And just absolutely horrific stories about what happened that I don't think most people, still, are really aware of.

And some of the most iconic kind of-- like Governor Macquarie. When you go back, I mean, he gave orders to shoot Aboriginal people. And I just wonder how many Australian people still really are aware of that. And I think that is one of the things that holds Sydney back, and Australia generally: that we really need to put effort into truth-telling, really unpacking that and acknowledging what happened. And then I think we can move forward, but we're still not there yet.

Caitlin Morrissey

And it is sensitive and traumatising to revisit all of that.

Alex O'Mara

What I think is really positive is, certainly, in the last 10 years, I would say there is, within the general community, I think, a real desire to kind of engage with that and acknowledge Country. Even just basic things, like when we meet together now in a workplace environment or at a cultural event, there's usually an acknowledgement of Country now which, when I was a child, would never have happened. So we are making steps towards that, which is really exciting to me.

And a lot of Aboriginal people are putting a lot of effort into helping us understand their culture. I mean, I'm always just absolutely in awe of their generosity after-- you know, if you think about generations of kind of very, very poor treatment, that they still have the incredible generosity of spirit to want to engage with us and tell us about their culture. I just think that's amazing. The more I know about Aboriginal culture, the more I just think it's incredible and the more you realise you don't know and how rich it is and how important it is that we all learn about it because I think it's such an interesting part of our place, the way Aboriginal people connect with place, or they would call it Country, that really deep connection to Country. And that goes on for millennia.

I mean, that's just such a fundamental way of engaging with place that I think there's so much we could learn from them about our own place and unlocking the magic of it and understanding-- for them, stories are written in the Country, and I love that sense of joined up-- everything is part of Country. And if you care for Country, she will care for you. I do think there's so much we can take from that, even if you think about climate change and the incredible bushfires we've been having.

I know, certainly, my group at work have been reading this book together about cultural burning and how an incredibly sophisticated way of managing land management through cultural burning would probably mean we wouldn't be having the bushfires we're having now in Australia, or certainly, we could mitigate the severity of it. And how do we start to learn about how to do that from them?

And actually, even if you think about what we eat and the way we manage the land-- there's an amazing book called Dark Emu that we've, again, been-- there's been a big discussion about that in Australia and about the kinds of crops we're growing, the way we farm. We should be looking at the kinds of grasses and things that Aboriginal people were eating because there's lots of-- I mean, we're still farming in quite a British way, in some ways. We're still farming beef and cattle and things that aren't native, and are there better ways to think about how we sustain ourselves in this kind of environment?

Caitlin Morrissey

So I suppose let me ask you two more questions. The first is what you think the future holds for Sydney and how its DNA and everything that we've discussed will shape the future. And then there'll be a very quick follow-up question after that.

Alex O'Mara

I think Sydney's coming into its own as an emerging world city. I think we're really well positioned. I think it's a highly desirable city in the sense of its landscape, its economy, the richness and diversity of its community, so I think it's got a really exciting future. And I'd love to see it embrace a future that really speaks to the magic of Sydney and sort of moves beyond the things that maybe international people think of about Sydney. And we love those things, the opera house, the beaches, but there's so much more to Sydney, and I think it's about us really having the confidence to tell that story to the rest of the world.

I think we always have been a sort of gateway to Australia. And how do we really consolidate around that and build stronger global connections to Asia and other parts of the world? And I think we're really well-placed to do that because of our incredibly multicultural community and their sort of really local-- I think the local connects globally because so many families have global connections. I think that's a real opportunity for Sydney.

And I'd love to see us talk more about our incredible culture and our First Nations culture, our cultural diversity and what that means in terms of cultural expression and the way we love to live, which is outdoors and free and fun.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you and the very final question is, if I was to have asked you a better question, would there have been anything else that you would have wanted to say about the DNA of Sydney that you haven't already?

Alex O'Mara

I suppose the only thing I'd mention is that sense of entrepreneurism. I think in some ways we're a young city, and there is this sense of opportunity. And one of the things I'm noticing in Sydney is this real energy around sort of start-ups, and I think it's responding to that sort of youthful playfulness, freedom of creative expression. It's one of the things that I think is starting to really blossom in Sydney, that sense of trying new things.

For example, I was talking to the head of one of the global companies recently that was in Sydney. He was telling me that often when they want to pilot something new, they try it in Sydney because culturally, people are very embracing of new things. So I do think there's something in that sense of entrepreneurism and economic opportunity to take risk and pilot new things. And that connects to the way we live more broadly, that sort of anti-establishment or risk-taking or creative expression and innovation. I think that is also part of Sydney's DNA.

And I think that is also going to be part of our economic future where, if you think about how our global community is unfolding, I think that sort of sense of more change, more risk and a lot of success is going to be about your ability to adapt and collaborate and be creative. And they are things that are part of Sydney's DNA, I think, in the sense that so many different cultures living together in a pretty harmonious kind of way and us having to adapt all the time to new people, new communities, new cultures. I think that sets us up really well for a great economic future that's sort of built on innovation and creativity but also a great place where people feel connected to each other and to their environment.

It's an absolutely beautiful city. It's a magical city to live in. And as you say, some of the best coffee in the world, great food. I think that response to all that layering of different cultures. And it's a wonderful place to live and visit.