Despite “decades of rhetoric about becoming a ‘clever country’”, Australia is no closer to meeting its research and development aspirations, and “simply pouring more funding into a dysfunctional system” won’t matter unless the commercialisation imperative is addressed, according to the Australian Industry Group. Making its submission to the Strategic Examination of Research and Development (SERD),…
Australian manufacturing conditions deteriorated further in March as political uncertainty and global trade disruptions weighed on business confidence, according to the latest Ai Group Australian Industry Index released on Tuesday. The Australian manufacturing PMI fell by 17.8 points to -29.7, deepening the sector’s contraction. This stands in contrast to the S&P Global Australia Manufacturing PMI,…
Androck gets Ampcontrol brand Ampcontrol announced on Wednesday that, following its May 2023 acquisition of Androck Engineering & Mining, Androck has been rebranded as Ampcontrol. In a statement, Ampcontrol said Andirock’s workforce has more than doubled in size to 106 employees and 33 apprentices since the acquisition, and its physical presence has grown to six…
Sparc, Flinders project backed by AEA grant Graphene business Sparc Technologies has announced that Flinders University, in partnership with Sparc, has been awarded funding under Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA) Ignite grant program. In a statement on Friday, the company said the 12-month project aims to accelerate development and validation of a graphene-enhanced material for use…
What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to @AuManufacturing were reading. 5) Quantum computing breakthrough by CSIRO unlocks new horizons CSIRO’s quantum researchers have catapulted Australia into the future of big data analysis. On January 29, 2025, they unveiled a quantum machine learning feat that could soon have us zipping through traffic,…
Although the consumer price index (CPI) slowed to 2.8 per cent this week, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that inflation is also “re-accelerating in some parts of the industrial ecosystem”, employer representative the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) has said. In a statement on Friday, Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox called slowing consumer…
Labor’s major plan to reinvigorate Australian manufacturing needs the ability to pull taxpayer funding from underperforming projects, industry think tanks say.
The head of education at The Australian Industry Group and a national leader at the Electrical Trades Union have been appointed as Deputy Commissioners at the federal government’s Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) The Ai Group’s Executive Director – Centre for Education & Training. Megan Lilly (pictured), and the ETU’s National Assistant Secretary Trevor Gauld…
BHP sets new copper smelting records BHP has set new records for smelted copper production at its South Australian copper mines centred on the Olympic Dam mine, concentrator and smelter. The company achieved record copper mined and concentrate smelted at Olympic Dam in FY24 production was up by 39 per cent to 322kt in the…
A new survey of 251 individual businesses by the Ai Group’s Centre for Education and Training (CET) has highlighted the impact of the current skills shortage, with 77 per cent of respondents reporting an increased need for technicians and trades workers, and 79 per cent having trouble finding these. The shortage of technicians and trades…
