‘Advanced manufacturing’ should be about people, skills and the environment, not fancy new tech

By Dr Jesse Adams Stein It is now a common trope of Australian election campaigns that both major parties pay lip service to the importance of supporting ‘advanced manufacturing’, while regularly donning hard-hats and high-vis vests. But what does ‘advanced manufacturing’ really mean for jobs, for communities, or for the environment? Image by Matt Roberts…

Labor promises an Australian Strategic Research Agency

The federal opposition has promised an Australian Strategic Research Agency in the style of highly successful overseas research models should it win the upcoming federal election. Opposition frontbencher Brendan O’Connor said the new agency would work closely with its counterparts, the ground-breaking US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the newly created UK Advanced…

ECT plans Victorian hydrogen from lignite demonstration plant

Industrial technology groups Environmental Clean Technologies and GrapheneX will jointly develop Australia’s largest lignite (or brown coal) syngas into hydrogen and low emission electricity demonstration project at ECT’s site at Bacchus Marsh in Victoria. The companies have signed a joint venture agreement to rollout phase 2 of ECT’s Baccus March Coldry technology demonstrator which will…

Grants up to $750,000 available to food manufacturers to expand in or relocate to WA

Western Australian food and beverage manufacturers have been invited to apply for the $7 million second round of the state’s Value Add Investment Grants program. Grants under the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) program offer matched funding for agriculture, food and beverage companies under two project streams: Feasibility stream grants are…

Election 22 the real issues – political leadership by Lance Worrall

@AuManufacturing’s occasional editorial series on the real issues in the 2022 federal election continues today. Here Lance Worrall outlines the policy challenge if we are to achieve significant reindustrialisation. If ever a federal election needed to be fought on a future economic vision and strategy it is this one. Four powerful factors confirm this: the…