By Jem Anshaw
The innovation and vision of the future for the Upper Hunter were some of the topics of conversation when a trade tour run by the NSW Government visited the area last week.
Delegates from Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Denmark, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom made a number of stops on their three day Hunter stay, including the AGL Energy Hub, BHP Mount Arthur and The Melt.
“We’re here to explore, to learn, to see if there’s anything that the respective consul officers can do to help with their individual countries, and how they can invest or extract further information or assistance from the projects that are happening here,” Steve Simone, program manager for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise said.
“These tours are extremely important because they really deal with connectivity, with knowing what’s happening amongst various businesses in the region.”
Mr Simone was impressed with the projects that the group heard about at The Melt, as well as the project accelerator concept used there.
“Seeing accelerators like that, and what they’re doing for the region here, and the very impressive turnover and capture of businesses being able to convert what they’re doing, their ideas, their technology, those sorts of things are quite impressive,” he said.
“If there are acceleration companies in New Zealand, I’m not aware of them. We mainly help in the trade enterprise sphere. We help with unlimited funding arrangements that helps them to explore the markets in Australia. But something like that is really worth emulating.”
Mr Simone was blown away with the sheer scale of operations at the AGL Energy Hub and Mt Arthur.
“We got to see all around the Bayswater Plant, the engineering is quite impressive,” he shared.
“It’s a shame almost that a facility like that is closing down, but the encouraging thing about it is that these guys are really thinking very, very far ahead of their time.”
Another highlight for Mr Simone was a presentation that happened during dinner at one of their nights in the region when Steven Fordham shared the work Blackrock Industries do to support inmate rehabilitation.
“He’s helping a lot of incarcerated Aboriginal persons to be able to break free from a life of substance abuse or other things that can affect the indigenous community, giving them support to transition while they’re in prison,” Mr Simone said.
“I found that very, very inspirational, and I think it would be useful for me to be able to take that back to the console office.”
While their time on this tour has wrapped up, Mr Simone said he would love to be able to revisit the region in a few years’ time to be able to see the evolution and in some cases outcomes of the projects they saw this time round.
