Australian Weaving Mills
Devonport, Tasmania
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The $251 million Enterprise Connect network is pivotal to the innovation policy the Government took to the last election.
Enterprise Connect consists of Manufacturing and Innovation Centres around the country dedicated to giving small and medium-sized firms better access to new ideas and technologies.
Businesses can use this knowledge to build their internal capacities and become more innovative, efficient, productive and competitive.
The network was launched in May and today I have the pleasure of formally opening the fourth Enterprise Connect Manufacturing Centre here in Tasmania.
This represents a $12 million commitment by the Australian Government, and it couldn’t come at a more critical time.
Australian manufacturers have been facing some very tough challenges lately, including:
• wild fluctuations in the value of the Australian dollar;
• the rise of low-cost competitors;
• shifting consumer expectations;
• shortages of skilled labour;
• an ageing workforce; and
• growing concern about climate change.
On top of these pressures we now have a global economic crisis.
We learned this week that the Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index hit an all-time low of 40.4 in October (anything under 50 indicates contraction).
This isn’t just an Australian phenomenon.
The Worldwide Manufacturing Index published by JP Morgan was 41.0 in October, and falling fast.
Against this background, it is more important than ever that we redouble our innovation efforts.
Australia has high living standards, and we want to keep it that way.
It’s hard to compete on price alone with low-wage countries.
What we need to be competing on is quality, safety, originality, design, and environmental responsibility – all the things you get when you invest in innovation.
This is the best way to create competitive advantage in a difficult marketplace.
That’s where Enterprise Connect comes in.
Companies using this centre will have access to infrastructure and services they can use to steer their way through the challenging times ahead.
Enterprise Connect is about helping individual companies keep their doors open by offering practical assistance to make them competitive in increasingly difficult conditions.
That doesn’t just mean companies here in the north.
This centre will serve manufacturers across the State and link them to resources around the country.
People often underestimate how important manufacturing is to Tasmania.
From 2001 to 2006, the manufacturing component of Tasmania’s Gross State Product increased steadily from $1.7 billion to $2.2 billion.
The sector has an annual turnover of around $6 billion and employs around 23,000 highly productive workers – industry value added per employee is well above the national average.
Metal product manufacturing, food processing, and wood and paper product manufacturing are the dominant activities.
In Tasmania, as in the rest of Australia, our strategy must be to build on these existing strengths while simultaneously looking for opportunities to diversify.
Enterprise Connect is part of that strategy.
In addition to Manufacturing Centres in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Burnie, we have also opened the Innovative Regions Centre in Geelong.
Innovation centres for Creative Industries and Clean Energy will soon be established.
A request for expressions of interest in hosting these centres has been met with an overwhelming response.
We are also well advanced on the Mining Technology Innovation Centre to be established in Mackay.
In fact, the network is up and running in every State.
At last count, more than 1,100 firms had received or applied for business reviews.
Two hundred have gone on to be awarded grants totalling $2.5 million, which they will use to make improvements identified through the business review process.
It is early days for Enterprise Connect in Tasmania, but already twenty companies have received or applied for business reviews, and four have been approved for tailored advisory service grants totalling $52,525.
Activity has been spread across the state, with business reviews being conducted at Derwent Park and Cambridge in the south, and at Launceston and Penguin here in the north.
Enterprise Connect is evolving rapidly in Tasmania.
It has a new state director in Dr Gillian Sparkes, it has a new home in the Burnie Manufacturing Centre, and it will soon be getting two new business advisers so that it can serve more firms, more quickly, as demand increases.
This is great news for Tasmania’s small and medium-sized enterprises, and great news for Tasmanian manufacturers.
Manufacturing is vital to our economy.
It employs a million people, generates a tenth of our GDP, does a third of our business research and development, and produces half of our exports.
By making manufacturing stronger, we make Australia stronger.
That’s very much what the Enterprise Connect manufacturing network is about.
It is about promoting the kind of excellence and building the kind of innovation capacity firms need to compete nationally and internationally.
It is about making companies more agile and more resilient.
Ultimately, it is about creating high-quality, high-skill, high-wage jobs.
In these uncertain economic times, that has to be our number one priority.
It’s therefore with great pleasure that I declare the Enterprise Connect Burnie Manufacturing Centre open.