Positioning the Queensland Smart State Initiative requires a close appreciation of key international perspectives that are developing in this arena. In particular, the paradigm shift that has occurred from information economy to information society to knowledge society, sends powerful signals. Moreover, there is a developing consensus on what the ingredients of a knowledge society should be. Queensland now has a clear list of policy choices to make and some housekeeping to undertake.

What is tropicalia? It's a garden that looks tropical. Hawaiian landscape architect Richard C. Tongg explained in 1960, ‘developing gardens on the theme of “tropicalia”, [means] making gardens in the tropics look the part, instead of being pale copies of other styles’. So what makes a garden look tropical? Earlier in the 1930s, Richard Tongg with garden writer Loraine E. Kuck provided the first clues to defining tropical garden character – three essential characteristics. I have argued there are other telltales from my research into early Queensland garden history. A summary of the qualities that distinguish tropical garden or landscape character is offered here:

• • a lush jungle-like density of planting (‘massed, crowded effects’);

• • ‘the selection of large-leaved plants’ (macrophyll-type leaves typical in rainforests);

• • ‘the enveloping growth of great-leaved creepers scrambling up tree trunks’;

• • components of the ‘Exotic Aspect’ (especially tropical-flavour plants and materials with visually striking (unusual) forms, and the use of bold, bright colours) including:

  • ‐ certain iconic tropical species such as palms, bamboo, tropical fig trees, epiphytes (staghorn ferns, orchids, bird's nest ferns, etc.), and rainforest vines (lianes);

  • ‐ combining traditionally ecologically disparate species (e.g. pines and palms);

  • ‐ plant types that provide masses of colourful flowers and/or foliage (e.g. poinciana, jacaranda, acalypha, croton, etc.);

  • ‐ bold colour combinations (e.g. orange, hot pink and bluey-purple as in the flower of Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae);

  • ‐ typical tropical shade gardening practices such as verandah, bush-house and fernery gardening; and,

• • possible components of the ‘Bizarre Aspect’ as found in Queensland, included garden ornaments such as rustic constructions using giant clamshells and/or coral-stone, whalebones as giant arches, and found objects (especially seaside flotsam/jetsam, such as glass buoys).

Brisbane has been relentlessly cleared since the first British soldiers and convicts set up at Redcliffe and then moved to the site we know as Brisbane today. As in other Australian colonies the new settlers were keen to grow crops and to exploit the timber both as a building material and later as a rich source of export income. While early explorers and botanists recorded the richness of the vegetation most new settlers saw the landscape as a resource to be exploited, not a pristine environment to be treated with respect.

This paper aims at providing some understanding of emerging elements of the knowledge economy and the policy frameworks that might be developed to foster regional entities that will prosper by meeting the challenges of engagement in the global knowledge economy. Through a review of extant and emerging literatures a novel conceptual framework is developed to assist in policy evaluation and development. This framework is then applied to Queensland's Smart State suite of policies. The paper concludes that Queensland has in place many elements of the policy framework required to foster a knowledge economy. It is argued however that several tensions within the policy framework are evident, and as this is an emergent area of policy development, further in-depth evaluation of both the policy settings and the effectiveness of policy is warranted.

This paper analyses and critiques the Queensland Government's Research and Development (R&D) strategy that undergirds the smart state policy agenda. We argue that this strategy poorly addresses: R&D opportunities deriving from the applied social and creative disciplines; and the role of the social and creative disciplines in the development and commercialisation process for all research. Furthermore, we suggest this derives from a view of ‘smart’ which is biased towards science and technology.

Queensland can no longer afford to understand the social and creative disciplines as commercially irrelevant, ‘civilising’ disciplines. Instead they must be recognised as the vanguard of economic growth. In particular, the proposed R&D strategy does nothing to position Queensland for the emerging wave of innovation needed to meet demand for content creation in entertainment, education, government, and health information, in order to exploit universal networked broadband architectures currently in development.

Not only is research in the applied social and creative disciplines required for its own commercial potential, but also because such research must be hybridised with science and technology research to realise the commercial potential of the latter. Commercialisation depends on ‘whole product value propositions’ not just basic research. We suggest that there needs to be mechanisms whereby research in the social and creative disciplines can be meaningfully hybridised with basic research in technology to create new commercial opportunities for Queensland. To this end we describe two examples of research driven commercialisation outside science/technology, namely interaction design and broadcasting.

The Acclimatisation Society Gardens are lost but there are surviving fragments in the present day Bowen Park and the old Exhibition Building gardens. There are some photos and Society records which survive in archives, but there are many tantalising, yet missing parts to the story. This paper attempts to reconstruct the story of an important aspect of early Brisbane's cultural history.

The bunya pine has a special meaning for Queenslanders, being endemic to the Bunya Mountains and Blackall Ranges in the South-East corner of the state, with a small stand in North Queensland. The bunya holds particular significance for local Indigenous peoples. They are bound to the tree through custodial rights and obligations and systems of traditional environmental knowledge that incorporate ‘classification …empirical observations of the local environment… [and] self-management that governs resource use’, built up through generations of interaction with the bunya forests. Indigenous groups celebrated their spiritual links to the bunya pine in large seasonal gatherings where they feasted on its edible nuts and performed ceremonies, adjudicated disputes and traded goods. The bunya's majestic height, striking unique silhouette, dark green foliage, unique botanical features and Indigenous associations held a fascination for colonial artists, natural scientists, entrepreneurs and gardeners. Over the years they assumed custodianship of the bunya pine, assimilating it into Western scientific, economic, legal, horticultural, environmental and symbolic systems, which replaced Indigenous custodial rights, obligations and knowledge. The spectacular bunya gatherings were mythologised in colonial writings as mystical, primeval ceremonies and barbaric rituals. Despite ‘fierce and actively hostile tribal resistance’ to colonisation of their lands, Indigenous groups were progressively driven out of the bunya forests. Empty landscapes left by the retreating forests – victims of timber felling and land clearing – came to symbolise the vanishing ceremonies and dwindling Aboriginal populations of South-East Queensland. While surviving Indigenous groups were swept into centralised reserves and settlements from the late nineteenth century, so too the bunya trees were cordoned off in 1908, for their own protection, in Queensland's second national park at the Bunya Mountains, where they stood ‘like the spirits of the departed original Queenslanders, mourning over the days which are forever gone’.

The Smart State initiative requires both improved education and training, particularly in technical fields, plus entrepreneurship to commercialise new ideas. In this study, we propose an entrepreneurial intentions model as a guide to examine the educational choices and entrepreneurial intentions of first-year University students, focusing on the effect of role models. A survey of over 1000 first-year University students revealed that the most enterprising students were choosing to study in the disciplines of information technology and business, economics and law, or selecting dual degree programs that include business. The role models most often identified for their choice of field of study were parents, followed by teachers and peers, with females identifying more role models than males. For entrepreneurship, students' role models were parents and peers, followed by famous persons and teachers. Males and females identified similar numbers of role models, but males found starting a business more desirable and more feasible, and reported higher entrepreneurial intention. The implications of these findings for Smart State policy are discussed.

The objective of this paper is to analyse key elements of the development strategy of Singapore since the mid–1960s. The paper describes the economic challenge faced by Singapore in the mid–1960s, overviews contemporary world trends in foreign direct investment, and uses competitiveness constructs developed by Michael Porter (1985) to clarify key stages in the evolution of Singapore's development strategy. The paper argues that the strategy has been successful because of unremitting top priority given to it by Singapore's political leadership and because the political leaders charged a single organisation, the Economic Development Board (EDB), with absolute authority to develop and implement the strategy. The paper concludes with implications for Queensland's Smart State initiatives.

I am connected to a family nursery business that has been running for four generations. My links go back to the early 1890s when my great grandfather had a nursery at Upper Mt Gravatt. He then shifted to South Brisbane where he moved into floristry. The business, however, was destroyed in the flood of 1893. His daughter, my grandmother, married Tom Perrott who had started in a nursery business with a well known nurseryman in Brisbane called T. H. Woods. They established the shop in George Street. They were also in the florist business and, in 1919, they decided to buy a nursery at Herston, near Ballymore Park and the Royal Brisbane Hospital, which ran until 1963. In the meantime, they had bought another nursery at Enoggera in 1936 (which I now own), and ran the two nurseries simultaneously. At that time, the main part of the business was still floristry and they did quite well in the depression years. The nursery at Enoggera was a 20 acre dairy farm that had been purchased mainly for the purpose of growing flowers for the floral trade. We used to grow rows and rows of different annuals and creepers and anything we could plant to flower, including many camellias which are still there today. A team of women would arrive at 6 o'clock every morning to pick these flowers and prepare them for packaging and transporting to the floral room at Herston.

Smart State is a Queensland Government initiative that recognises the central role of knowledge-based economic growth. In this context, the management of intellectual property (IP) within Queensland and Australian government research and development agencies has changed dramatically over recent years. Increasing expectations have been placed on utilising public sector IP to both underpin economic development and augment taxes by generating new revenues. Public sector research and development (R&D) management has come under greater scrutiny to commercialise and/or corporatise their activities. In a study of IP management issues in the Queensland Public Sector we developed a framework to facilitate a holistic audit of IP management in government agencies. In this paper we describe this framework as it pertains to one large public sector Agriculture R&D Agency, the Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI). The four overlapping domains of the framework are: IP Generation; IP Rights; IP Uptake; and Corporate IP Support. The audit within QDPI, conducted in 2000 near the outset of Smart State, highlighted some well developed IP management practices within QDPI's traditional areas of focus of innovation (IP Generation) and IP ownership and licensing (IP Rights). However, further management practice developments are required to improve the domains of IP Uptake and Corporate IP Support.

On 16 June 2002 a remarkable Australian, Harry Oakman, died. The author of thirteen books on tropical and subtropical gardening, he remains the most widely read gardener in Queensland and probably Australia. He was one of the early public horticulturalists, parks department manager, landscaper, planner with probably more public open space and recreation areas designed by him in the cities of Newcastle, Brisbane and Canberra than any other parks administrator.

The challenges in the business environment are forcing Australian firms to be innovative in all their efforts to serve customers. Reflecting this need there have been several innovation policy statements both at Federal and State government level aimed at encouraging innovation in Australian industry. In particular, the innovation policy statement launched by the Queensland government in the year 2000 primarily intends building a Smart State through innovation. During the last few decades the Australian government policy on innovation has emphasized support for industry R&D. However industry stakeholders demand a more firm-focused policy of innovation. Government efforts in this direction have been hindered by a lack of a consistent body of knowledge on innovation at the firm level. In particular the Australian literature focusing on firm level antecedents of innovation is limited and fragmented. This study examines the role of learning capabilities in innovation and competitive advantage. Based on a survey of manufacturing firms in Queensland the study finds that both technological and non-technological innovations lead to competitive advantage. The findings contribute to the theory competitive advantage and firm level antecedents of innovation. Implications for firm level innovation strategies and behaviour are discussed. In addition, the findings have important implications for Queensland government's current initiatives to build a Smart State through innovation.

Rockhampton is the principal city of Central Queensland. In the nineteenth century the city and the colony of Queensland were pursuing the policies of settlement, development and growth followed by the other colonies of Australia and in the British Empire.

The gardens at Gracemere homestead established by the Archer family in the mid nineteenth century represent an extant example of historical subtropical gardens in Queensland. They are, for this reason, highly significant gardens within the Queensland context. However, this paper sets out to describe and appreciate their form, not within this context, but as a unique statement of identity. The gardens at Gracemere can in one sense be seen as embodying a dialogue with the past – they are at this level a cultural artefact created consciously in emulation of the Archer family home, Tolderodden, in Norway, and consciously or unconsciously as an expression of nineteenth century European middle class notions of the genteel domestic garden. This proposition rests on notions theorized in the literature on landscape and memory/landscape and identity; that identity – personal, class, national – is often inextricably bound up with nostalgic memories or histories of a homeland landscape.

From a business perspective, the Dot.Com debacle of the late 1990s and early 2000s reinforced the need for good business planning and strategising, a clear requirement to be flexible and capable of almost constant change, a need to focus on creating added value and sustainable competitive advantage through the use of innovative ideas, strategies and tools – and finally, it focused attention on learning to harness the opportunities and minimise the problems associated with doing business in an electronic age. The case study outlined in this paper looks at the “What”, “Why” and “How” of doing business electronically in a traditional Queensland-based agri-industry – the Peanut Industry. The investigation found that the use of internet-enabled business practices between members of the industry value chain is increasing rapidly and is gaining respect as a means of improving efficiencies and productivity. It also found that if an entity in the value chain begins to do business electronically, other companies in that chain will need to follow suit or risk being substituted. In the longer term, it is likely that the drive for electronically enabled business practices will come from the larger food processing organisations, not only on the premise of improved internal efficiencies, but also because of increasingly tough food safety and quality assurance requirements that are prompting the need for real time quality information and decision support for product tracking back to source. Finally, conclusions are drawn for Smart State initiatives and for ‘smart’ practices in agri-business.

This paper presents a case study of the initial planning and implementation of an emerging e-model, community portals, in a regional Queensland community, focusing on the adoption of this model by the two key stakeholder groups of businesses and consumers. Our study was undertaken in two stages: an initial exploratory stage utilising depth interviews with businesses and focus groups of consumers to identify key reasons for participation, followed by a survey of all businesses and households in the region. Two key implications for successful planning and implementation of regional community portals include the need to focus on not only the establishment and start up phase of the portal but also on the longer term growth and development of the portal and secondly, the importance of considering and addressing the needs of all stakeholder groups at initial planning and implementation phases, rather than focussing on one stakeholder group. Overall the results question the viability of regional community portals if they are to be self-funding, hence necessitating a commercial focus.

Ellis Rowan was Australia's most celebrated flower painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An emancipated woman far ahead of her time, she turned what her fellow Australian artists deemed a ‘genteel’ female pastime of flower painting into an adventurous and profitable career which took her all over the world. In a career spanning fifty years and ending with her death in 1922, she produced the phenomenal number of more than 3000 paintings, and succeeded in placing many of these in public collections. Rowan exhibited her work as far afield as London and New York and achieved acclaim at intercolonial and international exhibitions of art and industry (with the award of ten gold, fifteen silver and four bronze medals). Also a skilled writer and publicist, she recounted her travels in the popular press and in a book entitled A Flower-Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand, published in 1898. This paper focuses on the artist's work in Queensland, a favourite hunting ground, and on her association with the tropics which was an essential part of her mystique.