Two companies are taking the initative in finding sustainable outcomes.

Ethtec has developed a process to convert low value material, generally regarded as waste, into ethanol, eliminating  the need to utilise prime land and agricultural products to produce fuel.  Read more on their website   http://www.ethtec.com.au/

A north Queensland based company, NQ Bio-Energy Corporation Ltd (NQBE), is planning the construction of a $400 million sugar, ethanol and power generation facility in Ingham, NQ.  read more on their website:   http://www.nqbioenergy.com.au/

 The group are working on a number of diverse projects at the moment including an OH&S monitoring service with Monit, the Vital Soils project with TrustNature FNQ and a market garden project in conjunction with Bynoe Corporation (Normanton). 

 Companies and individuals looking for assistance should contact Grant or Geoffrey on 07 4031 3050 or by email at grant@grinn.com.au

The Contribution Migration Makes to Regional Australia

Mark Cully commenced as Chief Economist with the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship in January 2009.

Mark has a first-class Honours degree in Economics from the University of Adelaide and began his working career as a graduate economist with the Australian Public Service. He won a Commonwealth Scholarship which enabled him to study at the University of Warwick and obtain a Master of Arts in Industrial Relations. He was appointed head of research on employment relations for the UK Government in the late 1990s, where he ran what was the world’s largest survey of working life, the results of which were published as Britain at Work.

Mark returned to Australia in 1999 to join the National Institute of Labour Studies as Deputy Director, and was then General Manager at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research for six years, running its statistical then research operations.

He was a speaker at the inaugural Adelaide Festival of Ideas in 1999 and chaired the advisory committee which prepares the Festival program from 2003 to 2007. Mark is the author of two books, and numerous articles and papers.

Assoc Prof Paul McLeod, Business School, University of Western Australia 

Capital Flows In and Out of Regions

Dr. McLeod is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Western Australia and an Adjunct Professor at the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. He teaches business economics to MBA students and microeconomic theory, resource and environmental economics and public policy economics to third year, honours and Masters, students in. He also teaches microeconomics to the Executive MPA students at the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. He teaches the economics of gas pricing and price regulation in the China Gas Program of the Australian Centre for Natural Gas Management.

The Hon. Anna Bligh MP, Premier of Queensland and Minister for the Arts

Growth Management in Queensland

Anna Maria Bligh made history on 21 March 2009, when she became the first popularly elected female Premier in Australia. Prior to the election, she served as Queensland Premier from 13 September 2007, following the resignation of Peter Beattie.

Ms Bligh was born in Warwick, Queensland, on 14 July 1960. She grew up on the Gold Coast, attending Catholic primary schools and Miami State High School, before completing the last six months of her schooling at Nowra State High School.

She became Deputy Premier of Queensland in July 2005 – the same month she celebrated 10 years as Member for South Brisbane. As Deputy Premier she was also Treasurer and Minister for Infrastructure, running the $33 billion Queensland State Budget and leading construction of the $9 billion South-East Queensland Water Grid.

Ms Bligh was formerly Minister for Finance, State Development, Trade and Innovation. Prior to that she was Queensland’s first female Education Minister, spending almost 5 years overseeing the most significant reforms to the state’s education system in decades.

The reforms saw the introduction of a preparatory year of schooling and requirements for all young people to be “learning or earning”. During that time she also had responsibilities for the Arts portfolio, overseeing construction of the Millennium Arts Precinct.

Following the election of the Beattie Labor Government in June 1998, her first ministerial responsibility was as Minister for Families, Youth and Community Care and Disability Services.

Dr Graham Turner, Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems

Global and National Sustainability Challenges: how big should Australia be?

Dr Graham Turner is a senior research scientist at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra ACT, Australia.  His work involves whole-of-system analysis on the long-term physical sustainability of the environment and economy.  Dr Turner develops and applies the Australian Stocks and Flows Framework to create ‘what if’ scenarios quantifying sustainability challenges and exploring potential solutions.  Past topics have included Australian agriculture, fisheries, transport, climate change impacts, water–energy systems, water accounting, distributed energy, and employment in a green economy.  Current interests involve food security, environmental implications of immigration, and coupling physical and economic models of the national economy.  Prior to joining CSIRO in 2000, Dr Turner was a policy analyst (Australian Defence Force Headquarters), researched ultra-insulating windows (University of Sydney), and undertook experimental and simulation research on industrial plasma physics (IBM’s T.J. Watson laboratory in NY, USA; and University of Sydney).

For more information and to register for SEGRA 2010 go to http://www.segra.com.au/

Alan Copeland Outlook for Mining & Pastoral Industries 2009 11

Max Foster Outlook for Current and Prospective Commodities Kununurra May 2009

Terry Sheales Economic Issues affecting Kununurra region May 2009

In his address, Gary highlighted the under-representation of northern Australia in the federal Parliament – of the 226 members of both Houses only a handful can claim to be from northern Australia.   The Parliamentary Secretary established the Friends of Northern Australia in Parliament and, with LNP Queensland Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald, facilitates non political and open discussion on matters relating to northern Australia.  Gary stated that this group will continue to function, regardless of which party wins the election as both he and Senator Macdonald are committed to its existence.

Other speakers at the Conference included representatives of ABARE-BRS, the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, James Cook University, the Queensland Resources Council, local indigenous representatives and local industry.  Presentations from the Conference can be accessed here:

Paul Morris_Economic issues affecting Mareeba (1.01MB)
Peter Baddiley Changing Climate and Weather in northern Australia (3.15MB)
Jeff Sabburg Climate northern Australia (1.09MB)
Max Foster Outlook for Agriculture in northern Australia (2.06MB)
Rosemary Hill Understanding Sustainable development and inter-linkages in northern Australia (1.14MB)
Bruce Prideaux dynamics of tourism in northern Australia (68KB)
David Rynne Mining and the Community (1.06MB)
Nigel Kelly Strategic Water Planning (1.05MB)

ABARE-BRS, the newly merged Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Bureau of Rural Sciences, provides integrated economic and scientific research, analysis and advice to government and industry on the key policy challenges facing the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors.  ABARE-BRS run regional conferences to provide local governments and industry with updates on commodity data, economic forecasts and research results tailored for the specific region.  Programs can be viewed at http://www.abare.gov.au/regional/

Many ideas on how Queensland could best manage growth came out of the Queensland Growth Management Summit. Between summit attendees, online survey respondents, comments posted on the summit website, commissioned work and from submissions made to the summit, around 1400 ideas were generated.

In closing the summit, the Premier committed to considering and responding to these ideas.

The government response focuses on six priority areas – shaping our future, strengthening our regions, promoting liveable and affordable communities, delivering infrastructure, protecting our lifestyle and environment and connecting communities. There are 22 new initiatives and 25 new supporting actions to manage growth across Queensland.

Key new initiatives forming part of Shaping Tomorrow’s Queensland include:

• Establishing Growth Management Queensland – a new function within the Department of Infrastructure and Planning which will lead the government’s growth management agenda.
• Delivering a Queensland Regionalisation Strategy to encourage population and economic growth outside South East Queensland.
• Introducing an $11,000 Regional First Home Owners Grant to encourage regional growth, providing a $4000 boost to the existing First Home Owners Grant.
• Developing a Queensland Infrastructure Plan (QIP) that clearly links infrastructure delivery with population growth and economic development. From 2011-2012 the QIP will integrate other infrastructure planning documents, such as the South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan and Program.
• Establishing an Infrastructure Charges Taskforce to further reform development infrastructure charging arrangements, including providing advice on alternative trunk infrastructure funding arrangements.
• Developing a long term strategy to transform the inter urban breaks in South East Queensland into major new greenspace and outdoor recreational opportunities.
• Tasking the Urban Land Development Authority with facilitating delivery of major new satellite communities in priority greenfield areas, initially at Ripley Valley, Yarrabilba and Flagstone.

The summary of the report can be accessed here: Queensland Growth gov-response-summary

One presentation related to northern Australia’s   Savannah Way:  themed-adventure-drive-and-tourism-clusters-in-northern-australia  (2.83MB)

Others relating to cluster formation, marketing and sustainability include:

Sustainability of Donor-Supported Tourism Clusters in Developing Economies, Prof David Hawkins (2.28MB)

Tourism Clusters market trends and competitiveness Michel Julian UNWTO

Branding and Marketing Tourism Clusters Chris-Seek

$2 million for rural community building projects
Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries, Rural and Regional Queensland Tim Mulherin has announced $2 million in funding for projects that improve their regions.  Mr Mulherin said the funding is part of Tomorrow’s Regions: the Queensland Government’s Partnership with Regional Communities – the Governments new integrated approach to working with rural and regional communities.  The plan also assigns a specific Government Minister to regions across the State to act as a dedicated Government point of contact for local councils and community organisations.

The RDA initiative has established 12 committees, made up of representatives from local councils and other local organisations across Queensland to work with all levels of government to address regional issues and to promote regional development.
Tomorrow’s Regions will complement the new Bligh Government Regionalisation Strategy to be released by the end of the year.

Organisations who wish to register their interest in the new funding program should email Blueprint@deedi.qld.gov.au

Minister’s Local Area Allocation