Boart Longyear
Lonsdale, South Australia
[check against delivery]
The $40 million South Australia Innovation and Investment Fund reflects the determination of two governments to support one critical region.
The Commonwealth and the Government of South Australia announced the fund in February 2008 in response to the closure of the Mitsubishi plant at Tonsley Park, which resulted in the loss of just over 900 jobs.
This was one of the first great challenges I faced as a Minister.
They were tough times for the workers involved and tough times for the region – but we got together with the people on the ground, we got together with our colleagues from South Australia, we promised a comprehensive response, and we have delivered.
We established this fund to diversify the regional economy and create sustainable jobs by backing technology-focused investment projects and building strategic infrastructure.
It has been a fantastic success.
Today we announce the eleven companies that have secured support in the second funding round.
They will receive $11.6 million from the fund, which we expect to shake loose another $66.5 million in private sector investment, for a total injection of $78.2 million in the regional economy.
This will create 476 full-time-equivalent jobs.
The South Australia Innovation and Investment Fund follows on from the success of the Structural Adjustment Fund for South Australia and the Innovation and Investment Fund for South Australia – two earlier joint Commonwealth-State initiatives.
Together, these three funds have assisted fifty-eight companies and generated $531 million worth of investment.
By the time the projects they have funded are complete, they will have created more than 3,200 jobs for South Australians.
Competition for grants from the South Australia Innovation and Investment Fund was fierce, and I am told by the advisory committee that the quality of the applications was high – not just in Round 2, but in Round 1 as well.
It says a lot about the passion and commitment of the South Australian business community that companies have been willing to put very significant investment dollars of their own on the table at a time of continuing global uncertainty.
Australia has come through the global recession in better shape than most, and we are seeing new signs of recovery every day, but no one should be doing a victory lap just yet.
The recovery in other parts of the world is still fragile, and it will be a while yet before we can be sure we are out of the woods.
It takes considerable courage and real entrepreneurship in an environment like this to be investing in new capacity.
That’s what the successful Round 2 applicants are doing, and they deserve our total admiration.
They also deserve every success.
Going by what we have seen of them so far, I’m very confident they will achieve it.
The successful companies and their grants are:
• Benex Technologies
• our hosts for today, Boart Longyear
• Central Diesel
• Digislide Holdings
• EMT Group
• Long Distance Technologies
• Manuele Engineers
• Modra Hayes
• vivoPharm
• Weeks Group, and
• Williams Laser Cutting and Fabrication
They cover a broad range of industries, from building materials to information and communication technology.
Boart Longyear, for example, will be using its funding to develop an integrated R&D, engineering, testing and manufacturing facility for an exciting new range of drill rigs.
Digislide Holdings will use its grant to establish a technology innovation centre, with the focus on advanced opto-electronics.
vivoPharm will use its funding to upgrade and expand its in-vivo pharmacology department.
As disparate as these projects may seem, they have several things in common.
Each of them demonstrates:
• a strong belief in innovation
• a determination to build new capacity equal to the challenges of the twenty-first century marketplace
• and a commitment to doing business in South Australia.
Let me end as I began – by saying thank you.
Thank you to Kevin Foley and all my colleagues in the South Australian Government, who have been instrumental in making this fund a success.
And thank you to all eleven successful companies.
You have confirmed my faith in Australian industry, and my absolute conviction that it has a great future.