Dorrington a cultural warrior

IF you are Perth-born, well educated, and between the ages of 25 and 34 years old, chances are you are not reading this article in your home state.

Ask any senior lawyer or accounting partner how hard it is to keep professionals fitting this demographic from catching the travel bug.

The lure of London, until recently, has been overwhelming. When the global financial crisis ends and business starts again, so will the migration.

Move into the right-brained part of this demographic and the losses are even higher. Creative people from advertising, music, arts and other cultural pursuits take off in droves, leaving the gentle hum of suburban Perth behind them.

In the boom, the vacuum these people left was partly filled by engineers; just how long even they will last in a minerals downturn is the big question.

The same issue also afflicts the regions, just at younger ages and across a broader spectrum of people.

Of course, many argue this is not so bad. Most of those departing will boomerang back at another stage of their lives, often when they find that rearing children and the fast life in a global capital are not always conducive to a balanced existence.

They'll take a pay cut, skip the ski trips and return to the nursery, bringing their global experience and foreign-born partners to a city made for raising children - complete with at least one set of grandparents thrown in as an added bonus.

But Lynda Dorrington doesn't buy this yin and yang thing, believing this flow of people is unbalanced and unsustainable at every level.

We are not meant to be salmon, Ms Dorrington says, returning to the place of our birth to spawn a new generation.

Worse, she sees the best and brightest of this demographic often being lost forever. Even those who don't depart permanently spend the most innovative and creative period of their lives contributing to communities elsewhere.

Why? Well, mainly because we haven't built the social fabric and soft infrastructure to hold or attract the young, talented and mobile.

"We rob ourselves," Ms Dorrington said.

"Per capita we are training more intellectual property generators than any state but we have a net loss every year."

She looks at the issue like a business opportunity.

"If we are in the business of growing Western Australians, as the government is, why do we let that investment go?"

The self-created cultural tsar of Western Australia, Ms Dorrington heads the organisation called FORM, which, using its own description, is an independent cultural organisation that works to enhance WA's competitiveness and creativity through creative, cultural and social capacity building projects.

A decade ago, FORM was a sleepy state-funded body for WA jewellers and designers called Craftwest, with a couple of staff working long hours to keep a shop going and host a few exhibitions. Not without controversy and pushback, Ms Dorrington transformed the organisation into a big player in the wider cultural space.

It has muscled into a space normally occupied by government departments or think tanks, playing an activist role in helping to generate creative thinking and development.

Big sponsors have been attracted to this because they can see the benefits, helping shift FORM's funding to a much broader base. Government departments outside the traditional arts and culture mould have also played a part.

FORM's innovation in this field kicked off by taking world-class wood design expertise to the South West at a time when forestry was in crisis.

Since then it has hosted some of the world's leading thinkers on creativity - Richard Florida and Charles Landry, to name just two.

This stimulated significant interest and focused a lot of attention on the physical assets of Perth, such as the lack of connection with the Swan River, as well as the stifling regulation of retail trading hours and liquor licensing.

FORM has also undertaken cultural projects around the state, such as one focused on Aboriginal communities along the Canning Stock Route. There is also a fledgling arts-based development in South Hedland.

Companies such as BHP Billiton have poured millions of dollars into these sorts of efforts as they try to activate their own workforces and engage with the indigenous people in the regions where they operate.

Comparative Capitals is, perhaps, FORM's landmark work. It is an 87-page report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that studies the key mechanisms in the war for talent; a fight Perth is losing.

FORM is also engaged in other projects where its name is not foremost, such as the pro-daylight saving campaign.

"When you are doing community engagement stuff you have to be organic," Ms Dorrington said.

"You have to go where the people are going."

WA is not an easy place to connect with the rigid structures of traditional business and government.

Ms Dorrington believes FORM's success in this - and she believes bigger things are yet to come - is based on its persistence, both in attracting the interest of decision-makers and then getting achieving outcomes they can't ignore.

"You have to be persuasive," she said.

"Here, the door closes very quickly and you don't get back in there."

"We don't take no for an answer.

"I am willing to be like water and go where it is easiest, but if you can't capture the mind of the man at the top you have no chance."

While clearly the driver, Ms Dorrington appreciates those who've helped on her journey. She singles out former Labor cabinet minister Alannah MacTiernan and businessman John Poynton as people who have consistently backed her. Former Wesfarmers managing director Michael Chaney was also very supportive in the early days of FORM.

But those are rare people.

Wearing a bright yellow 'YES' badge showing her voting intentions in the forthcoming referendum on daylight saving, Ms Dorrington is visibly frustrated by the lack of political will to change things.

Unfortunately, it is a self-fulfilling feedback loop. The young aren't here to have their say in the way things should be, and instead we have a society that's overweight in the age category and less open to change.

"We are basically quite conservative," Ms Dorrington said.

"I think that is because we have lost an age group, that younger age group.

"Unless we say we are going to be a magnet for the young and educated before they have children, we will continue to do what we have been doing."

During the boom it looked very much as Ms Dorrington's vision was prevailing. Former Labor premier Geoff Gallop put retail-trading hours to a referendum while his successor, Alan Carpenter, pushed for a spectacular foreshore development.

State parliament backed a three-year daylight saving trial and small bar licenses were approved.

At this stage, only the last of these has come to fruition in a permanent way.

While Ms Dorrington does not want to be seen as the standard-bearer for these changes, her stance on them created that perception. For instance, at the launch of the Committee for Perth two years ago Ms Dorrington was given considerable prominence.

Many readers might be surprised to find she has had little to do that organisation since FORM assisted with its inception.

The global financial crisis, not to mention a change of government, has altered the landscape significantly in terms of the political will to enact change.

While Ms Dorrington bemoans the withdrawal of much of Perth's business community back into its shell as they fight for financial survival - by way of indication, donations and sponsorship at FORM dropped almost 38 per cent in the year ending December 31 - there is an element of serendipity in current economic crisis.

She sees the financial malaise as a setback for acquisitive individualism, the consumption-driven behaviour that divides the community.

"It's time for reflective and constructive thinking," Ms Dorrington told WA Business News.

Ms Dorrington, who has been offered roles in other places, also sees tighter financial circumstances may give rise to more flexible thinking, such as public-private partnerships, to foster community developments and attract the young and talented to WA.

"We are talking about building the human beings that will inhabit the future WA," she said.

"I think you should make change here, if there the opportunity to make change you should do it."

"If you don't do it? My grandchildren will be leaving here otherwise."