- intouch Magazine
A future made in Australia will rely on the regions
The Hunter region’s businesses are encouraged by, and stand ready to play their part in the Prime Minister’s A Future made in Australia Act, offers Business Hunter CEO, Bob Hawes.
Prime Minister Albanese said Hydrogen, green metals, solar power, emerging renewable sources and technologies would form the future of the country.
Mr Hawes said the gains being pursued in manufacturing and clean energy would come primarily from our regional communities, which would benefit from national coordination and ‘belonging’.
“Identifying and leveraging where the country and its regions have a comparative advantage to contribute and play a part in the delivery of this Act makes enormous sense. By doing this, the inefficient competitive behaviour between states and regions can be put to one side and projects and opportunities placed where they can best be realised.”
“As the Prime Minister detailed, this is a global race, and other countries are well ahead of us. We simply can’t afford to sit back and wonder what might have been given the endowments the nation and its regions have.”
“It will be a blessing if this package moves the dial on provoking further investment into industry and the energy sector and the government having a deeper reach into this space will assist in underwriting certainty which at times has been lacking.”
Mr Hawes said the commitment to better coordination of government action was also a positive step.
“Bringing discrete parts of existing and future policy under one umbrella is also welcomed and will hopefully ease the navigation task for business to connect with government. The government will need to be prepared to engage to get ideas and projects off the ground as we’re sure there isn’t going to be a shortage of those,” said Mr Hawes.
“The challenges for business and investment to date have been around approval processes, red tape and at times, a lack of clear frameworks in which to operate. Clarity across these elements will result in an immediate acceleration of opportunity.”
Mr Hawes said the vision detailed today by the Prime Minister was in close alignment with the broad objectives of the region, and that the Hunter had received firm indications of policy intentions during the Prime Minister’s visits to the Hunter over the last six months.
“The Prime Minister’s address at our Special Nexus dinner revealed some strong clues as to what might feature in the national policy agenda. We picked up on this and worked up our Summit accordingly,” said Mr Hawes.
Business Hunter will host their annual Summit, this year titled ‘A future made in the Hunter’, on June 27 as a way to facilitate regional coordination and response to this important policy. Sign up here to stay across emerging details such as speaker announcements and ticketing.
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