‘Let’s have a look at what we want to be, not just what we are’ – CBF President Ian Hamm looks at Roadmap 2033 – the ten-year plan for Australia’s community broadcasting sector – and shares with us some of his thoughts and insights on how can we contribute to thought leadership and the bigger thinking of the sector as a whole:
‘It struck me when I came into the sector that the sector was surviving more than thriving’ shares Ian. Tracing back to Roadmap’s early beginnings and what began as conversations between people in the sector, he recalls ‘people in this sector very much understood and believed we have to do more than survive. We’re too important to the Australian community at large to just survive and be on the edge of the cliff all the time’.
‘Now I’m Aboriginal and I know all about surviving more than thriving. It’s in my DNA’ he shares. ‘But there was something we did in Aboriginal affairs, particularly in Victoria, 20 years ago actually, which was if all we do is survive, then that’s hardly a way to live for us and future generations.’
On Roadmap 2033, Ian emphasises ‘let’s look at what we want to be, not just what we are.’ Reflecting on the formative stages of Roadmap, he explains ‘we shifted our thinking from being – for example, waiting for government to determine what it wanted to do and then respond to it, to: here’s where we want to go and here’s where we want to be in a decade and here government is your role in that.’
‘So for us to say: here’s our vision for ourselves, here’s the breadth of things we want to operate in, here’s where we want to get our sector to be in the Australian media and in the Australian larger community – that’s what our Roadmap is about’.
‘We want to be strong. We want to be thriving. We want to provide people with career opportunities. We want to expand our horizons. We want to ensure that we are regarded not as an addendum to media in Australia, but as a critical part of the media in Australia’.
Roadmap 2033 outlines a shared vision for the future where community broadcasting is at the heart of every community. For more information visit https://www.roadmap2033.org.au/.