The Mid North Coast is a country region in the north-east of the state of New South Wales, Australia. The region covers the mid northern coast of the state, beginning from Port Stephens 160 km north of Sydney, and extending as far north as Woolgoolga, 562 km north of Sydney, a distance of roughly 400 km. It also includes the World Heritage Area of Lord Howe Island, about 600km east of Port Macquarie.

The Mid North Coast lies between the Great Divide and the east coast. The landscape is typified by winding rivers that feed lush hinterland, and over one hundred kilometres of pristine beaches. It benefits from a high rainfall and is considered by many to have the most ideal climate in Australia. Taree, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie.

Over the last twenty years the NSW Mid North Coast Region has evolved from a coastal retirement and tourist destination with a significant agricultural base - forestry, fishing and farming to a region with a diversified service- based economy.

The northernmost part of the state, Far North Queensland is a tropical region stretching from Cairns to the Torres Strait. With the magnificent coral of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast and World Heritage listed tropical rainforests on the land, there are not many locations in the world that can boast such unique natural attractions within easy reach.

The Soil CRC (CRC for High Performance Soils) was established in 2017 to give farmers the knowledge and tools they need to make decisions on extremely complex soil management issues.
By bridging a gap between soil scientists and farmers, we will ensure that soil performance is increased not just in the short term, but in the long term.
Our practical, real-world outputs will allow farmers to optimise their productivity, yield and profitability, and ensure the long-term sustainability of their farming businesses.
Through its soil research and innovation program, the Soil CRC will develop new solutions that will unlock the potential of Australia’s agricultural sector.
It will address the billions of dollars in lost opportunity experienced by farmers and regional communities due to infertile and underperforming soils.
CRCs are led by passionate and motivated industry partners, and draw in the brightest researchers from across Australia to address issues of national significance.
• New mechanisms for financially rewarding management of high performance soils.
• New integrated soil management solutions that provide greater precision for farmers.
• New ways to measure the performance of soils.
• New advanced and innovative products to increase soil fertility and function.

North Queensland has long been a base for various major industries, including mineral processing, sugar mills, beef processing and concrete batching plants.
Industries considered for the region include sea, air, rail and road-dependent industrial uses such as manufacturing (chemicals and metals production), minerals processing, food processing, intermodal freight and logistics and bulk storage.

The region is home to key defence bases including Lavarack Barracks (one of Australia’s largest), Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Townsville (co-located with Townsville Airport) and the Ross Island Barracks. The Port of Townsville also supports naval operations for both Australia and foreign vessels.

Townsville is the base for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef studies, TropWATER, CSIRO and ReefHQ aquarium.

Gippsland is renowned for its natural attributes, including Gippsland Lakes and coastlines, Wilsons Promontory National Park and one of Victoria’s largest visitor attractions, the Phillip Island Penguin Parade.

Roughly the same size as Switzerland, Gippsland covers over 41,500 square kilometres and is the largest region in Victoria. The community works and lives in a resource-rich landscape (one of the most diverse in regional Australia) from the Latrobe Valley’s industrial heartland to rich agricultural lands, coastal and lakes regions, highlands, and the forested north and east.

Each year, nearly eight million tourists visit Gippsland, attracted to the unspoilt lakes, beaches, snowfields, bushlands, and rainforests, as well as the beautiful towns and villages. Its major towns are Traralgon, Warragul, Drouin, Morwell, Bairnsdale, Moe, Leongatha, Sale and Wonthaggi.

Gippsland has a reputation for producing quality products and services across various industries such as food and fibre, energy, forestry, fisheries, manufacturing, and tourism.

Ipswich has a long and proud manufacturing history. Today, it has a thriving modern manufacturing industry that provides a significant contribution to the Queensland economy.
Manufacturing alone generated more than half (51%) of the total exports, $3.6 billion, an increase of more than 2,400 full time jobs from 2019/20. This global reach is a recognised strength for the region.

Historically, Ipswich has been famously known as a rail manufacturer. Today however, it is a world-class aerospace and defence centre with a booming food manufacturing hub. Collectively, manufacturing added $1.6 billion in value, an increase of over 14% since the previous year (2019/20).

As the largest industry across the manufacturing sector, food product manufacturing accounts for $2.1 billion in exports, $612 million value added to the economy and 6% of full time jobs. Ipswich is home to JBS Australia's Northern Division headquarters, alongside JBS Australia's Dinmore processing facility, the largest beef processing plant in the southern hemisphere. Its connectivity to major highways and rail ensures access to an extensive network of quality cattle.

Ipswich has established itself as a major production and distribution centre to both national and international food markets. Significant industry opportunities continue to emerge in the region including food packaging and new agritourism developments.

Melbourne’s north is fast becoming a world-class food and agricultural hub. The region is home to some of Australia’s best loved food and beverage brands, as well as an eclectic mix of artisan businesses, including boutique microbreweries, premium chocolate makers, coffee roasters and gourmet food distribution companies.

The region leads the state in the production of many food categories including bakery, confectionery, dairy, seafood and meat.

Flow batteries were first developed in the 1980s, by now-Emeritus Professor Maria Skyllas-Kazacos at the University of New South Wales.

“Most of the batteries that we use are enclosed systems,” says Associate Professor Alexey Glushenkov, a chemist and research lead in battery materials at the Australian National University’s Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program.

In the coming decades, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind will increasingly dominate the conventional power grid. Because those sources only generate electricity when it’s sunny or windy, ensuring a reliable grid — one that can deliver power 24/7 — requires some means of storing electricity when supplies are abundant and delivering it later when they’re not. A promising technology for performing that task is the flow battery, an electrochemical device that can store hundreds of megawatt-hours of energy — enough to keep thousands of homes running for many hours on a single charge. Flow batteries have the potential for long lifetimes and low costs in part due to their unusual design. In the everyday batteries used in phones and electric vehicles, the materials that store the electric charge are solid coatings on the electrodes.

A flow battery contains two substances that undergo electrochemical reactions in which electrons are transferred from one to the other. When the battery is being charged, the transfer of electrons forces the two substances into a state that’s “less energetically favourable” as it stores extra energy. (Think of a ball being pushed up to the top of a hill.) When the battery is being discharged, the transfer of electrons shifts the substances into a more energetically favourable state as the stored energy is released. (The ball is set free and allowed to roll down the hill.)

At the core of a flow battery are two large tanks that hold liquid electrolytes, one positive and the other negative. Each electrolyte contains dissolved “active species” — atoms or molecules that will electrochemically react to release or store electrons. During charging, one species is “oxidized” (releases electrons), and the other is “reduced” (gains electrons); during discharging, they swap roles. Pumps are used to circulate the two electrolytes through separate electrodes, each made of a porous material that provides abundant surfaces on which the active species can react. A thin membrane between the adjacent electrodes keeps the two electrolytes from coming into direct contact and possibly reacting, which would release heat and waste energy that could otherwise be used on the grid.

A critical factor in designing flow batteries is the selected chemistry. The two electrolytes can contain different chemicals, but today the most widely used setup has vanadium in different oxidation states on the two sides. That arrangement addresses the two major challenges with flow batteries.

First, vanadium doesn’t degrade. If you put 100 grams of vanadium into your battery and you come back in 100 years, you should be able to recover 100 grams of that vanadium — as long as the battery doesn’t have some sort of a physical leak.

And second, if some of the vanadium in one tank flows through the membrane to the other side, there is no permanent cross-contamination of the electrolytes, only a shift in the oxidation states, which is easily remediated by re-balancing the electrolyte volumes and restoring the oxidation state via a minor charge step. Most of today’s commercial systems include a pipe connecting the two vanadium tanks that automatically transfers a certain amount of electrolyte from one tank to the other when the two get out of balance.

Remote microgrids are perfect for flow batteries of all scales.

They’re not temperature sensitive, like lithium-ion batteries, so they can operate quite comfortably in hot conditions, which is a real benefit. And they’re non-flammable.

Australia has around 18% of the world’s vanadium reserves, mostly in Western Australia – hence Australian Vanadium’s interests. The element is still, mostly, used in steel, but flow batteries are going to change things.

The South West is one of Western Australia’s nine recognised regions located outside the Perth metropolitan area. Fronting the Indian and Southern oceans, covering 24,000 square kilometres and including 12 local government areas, the South West is the most populous and economically diverse of WA’s regions.

Of the landmass that comprises the region, about two-thirds is made up of State Forest, National Parks and regional parks, with the southern forests being the largest component. About 25% is occupied by agricultural and rural uses, with about 8% used for industrial and urban development.

The economy benefits from the combination of the commodity rich hinterland (agriculture and mineral resources) in close proximity to a working port. Alumina refining and associated construction play a major role in economic output and employment. Agriculture, forestry and associated processing are significant sectors supplying dairy, beef, vegetables and wood/timber products for domestic consumption and increasingly for export markets.

Historically, timber production and agriculture have been the predominant land uses within the Margaret River region, which has some of the most productive agricultural land in the State. The agriculture sector is diverse and includes a variety of cropping, viticulture and wine, fruit, flower and vegetable production, olives and olive oil, pasture production and livestock - beef and dairy cattle, sheep and deer, timber and artisan cheese production.

Apprenticeships and traineeships are excellent examples of pathways into work that have proven to be effective. But they are specific to certain occupations.

Apprentices and trainees made up about 10 per cent of the pathways people take into the workforce. He said policymakers needed to create better vocational education and training (VET) courses to give young people stronger options outside universities and apprenticeships.

3.9 million people were enrolled in vocational education and training last year, but up to 2.4 million of those were in short courses such as first aid and construction safety.

Government investment in Lot Fourteen is expected to catalyse further private sector investment in Edinburgh Defence Precinct, Technology Park Adelaide/Mawson Lakes, Osborne Naval Shipyard, Tonsley Innovation District and The Waite Research Precinct.

The Osborne Naval Shipyard will deliver Australia’s Future Frigates and Future Submarines programs, other major naval projects, and hosts some of Australia’s leading maritime companies. South Australia has its roots in the construction, upgrade, full-cycle docking and life-of-type extension of the Collins class submarine, the construction and delivery of three Hobart class Air Warfare Destroyers, the continuous build of major warships, including two Arafura class Offshore Patrol Vessels, nine Hunter class frigates and a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines that will be built at the Osborne Naval Shipyard.

Edinburgh is the home of RAAF Base Edinburgh, Defence Science and Technology and major defence companies, with major capabilities in research, development and manufacturing.

RAAF Base Edinburgh is the home of P-8A Poseidon aircraft, Triton unmanned aircraft system, special purpose electronic warfare aircraft, the Jindalee Operational Radar Network and space surveillance systems.

Graphene – a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice – is renowned for being up to 200 times stronger than steel and being a highly efficient conductor of both heat and electricity.

Graphene is particularly useful in man-made products such as polymers, composites and plastics.

Major users of graphene include automotive giant Ford, which is already using the material in certain car parts, and China’s Huawei uses graphene to help manage heat in its smartphones.

Despite the accelerating growth in demand for graphene, there are only a handful of companies on the ASX that are actively involved in the graphene sector.

First Graphene produces the product at its factory in Henderson, south west of Perth from where it exports to a global market.

High-quality graphene requires very pure graphite, and it turns out that South Australia has many high-grade deposits.

Apprenticeships and traineeships are excellent examples of pathways into work that have proven to be effective. But they are specific to certain occupations.

Apprentices and trainees made up about 10 per cent of the pathways people take into the workforce. He said policymakers needed to create better vocational education and training (VET) courses to give young people stronger options outside universities and apprenticeships.

3.9 million people were enrolled in vocational education and training last year, but up to 2.4 million of those were in short courses such as first aid and construction safety.

In the Northern Rivers, agribusiness is a major driver of our local economy. The sub-tropic climate and rich soils of our region provide ideal conditions for a broad variety of agriculture.

Well established agricultural industries in the region include beef, sugar cane, bananas, vegetables and dairy. More recently blueberries and macadamias have been our fastest growing industries. Increasing demand from Asia and other international markets has seen rapid growth for these products. The industry has responded to this by investing in research and development for more resilient and higher yielding varieties.

There is significant agricultural activity across the Region. Kyogle and Casino are the primary hubs, focused on cattle, milk and poultry (inland) and cane growing around Evans Head.

The Ballina and Lismore regions have similar strengths in macadamia and sugar cane production, as well as distinctions (nurseries in Ballina; milk, cattle and poultry production in Lismore). While not as great as elsewhere, Byron Shire still produces significant macadamia, nursery, cattle and milk output. Cattle, macadamias, poultry and milk are the Northern Rivers’ leading commodities.
The Northern Rivers provides opportunities for agribusiness research collaboration with Southern Cross University. The Australian Government has a number of programs to support research and development.

New industries currently investing in new technologies in the region include a multi-million dollar medicinal cannabis plant that will potentially generate up to $1 billion in revenue and create 300 new jobs in the region. This facility will utilise state of the art Ag-technology, with ongoing research and development a key focus of the plant.

The economy of the Greater Whitsunday region offers diverse investment opportunities with a proven track record for growth and prosperity. The Isaac region is home to the Bowen Basin, housing the largest coal mining deposits in Australia. Most of Queensland’s prime coking coal reserves are mined here, including the highest-grade metallurgical coal in the world.

Mackay is the centre of one of Australia’s most developed Mining, Equipment, Technology and Service (METS) industries and has enormous bio-futures potential. The Whitsundays is not only a world-class tourism destination, attracting more than a million visitors annually, but is a highly developed food producing region with sugar cane, horticulture and aquaculture.

The Central West region of New South Wales is renowned for its food and wine and excellent agricultural produce. It covers an area of 63,000 square kilometres starting at the temperate, elevated Central Tablelands on the western side of the Blue Mountains and extends almost 500km to the semi-arid Central West plains.

The region is home to over 181,000 people within the 11 council areas of Bathurst, Blayney, Cabonne, Cowra, Forbes, Lachlan, Lithgow, Oberon, Orange, Parkes and Weddin.

Unique in its diversity of economy, the Central West Region of NSW is rich in natural resources with agriculture, mining and tourism significant drivers of jobs and opportunities. Increasingly, health and education have taken on a significant role in the region’s economy.

The agriculture and mining industry output is underpinned by abundant natural resources within rich soil and mineral deposits. Additionally, varied topography and climatic conditions across the region provide various opportunities ranging from forestry, cool climate produce, dairy, sheep and beef livestock, as well as a variety of irrigation and broad acre crops.

Logan is a rich and diverse community filled with a myriad of talented and dedicated artists, makers and creatives – musicians, performers and producers, writers, visual artists and more.

While local council is supportive of arts culture, there is a distinct lack of diversity in local infrastructure and community-led programs for the creative sector.

We lack a range of independent commercial spaces to develop, practice and engage the greater community in the arts.

Ipswich economy is driven by high value industries of manufacturing, health care and social assistance, retail trade, education and defence. Ipswich is located in a prime location in South East Queensland, between Gold Coast to the south, Toowoomba to the west, Brisbane to the east, and the Sunshine Coast to the north.

Gippsland offers a variety of natural attractions like nowhere else in Victoria. From rugged alpine mountain ranges, historic rural towns to pristine beaches, Gippsland is a diverse place attracting local and international visitors all year around.

The tourism industry in Gippsland is an important contributor to the region’s economy, worth $2.4 billion in direct and indirect expenditure per annum. Gippsland has outperformed regional Victoria for domestic and international visitation percentage growth, with 10.8 million visitors to the region annually. The visitor economy supports over 3,000 businesses who derive the majority of their income from overnight and daytrip visitors.

Strongly backed by the government, multiple projects have been put into place to further Gippsland’s visitor economy. This includes the $48 million upgrade of the Philip Island Nature Park, the $30 million Latrobe Creative Arts Precinct and the $13.9 million West Gippsland Arts Centre.