Federal and state skills ministers meet

Federal, State and Territory Skills and Training Ministers met in Brisbane last week to progress key skills sector reforms and vocational education workforce challenges, aimed at strengthening the quality of vocational education and training and tackling the nations skills shortages now and over the longer term. This an edited version of their communique. National Skills…

Best of the week — the five most popular stories among @AuManufacturing’s readers

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to this site were reading. 5) GMG GETS APPROVALS TO BUILD GRAPHENE BATTERY PLANT AT BRISBANE Brisbane-based, Toronto-listed Graphene Manufacturing Group announced on Wednesday that it had the regulatory and council approvals needed to begin commercial-scale manufacturing of its novel batteries. To date…

Marand wins missile system contract

Engineering group Marand has won a contract from Kongsberg Defence Australia (KDAu) for the production of launch ramp systems for the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile. The project will involve large scale fabrication of the launch ramps that will be fitted to Royal Australian Navy ships and support the Launcher Missile Module (LMM). The federal government…

Coles, Woolies offer to take on REDcycle’s plastics stockpile

Supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles said on Thursday that they’ve offered to assume responsibility for an estimated 12,000 tonnes of stockpiled soft plastic left behind by the collapsed REDcycle program. REDcycle collected soft plastics from about 2,000 supermarkets around Australia. It was paused in November, and had been secretly stockpiling unprocessed plastic at sites around…

Li-S Energy to develop lithium sulfur battery cell

Battery technology company Li-S Energy has announced a partnership with the ARC Research Hub for Safe and Reliable Energy (SafeREnergy) on a solid-state lithium sulfur battery cell development project. The project will combine Li-S Energy’s lithium sulfur and lithium metal technologies with solid-state solutions, with the potential to deliver higher performance and increased safety. Solid-state…

Corrosion Instruments develops NT’s first electronics production

Northern Territory based company Corrosion Instruments has launched CI-Tx, a system that remotely monitors and controls the cathodic protection on pipelines, wharves, storage tanks and tunnels. Previously, monitoring corrosion on such large metal infrastructure was an onerous task that had to be done manually, according to founder and Managing Director, Sam Pattemore. Pattemore, who has…