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FROM THE MINISTRY THE HON CHRISTIAN PORTER MP – Minister for Industry, Science and Technology
Manufacturing strategy delivering for businesses The Government’s support for local manufacturing stepped up a gear mid-year with a number of major developments in the $1.5bn Modern Manufacturing Strategy. The Strategy will create jobs, help businesses overcome roadblocks, and deliver a stronger and more resilient economy to benefit all Australians. The Strategy is delivering, and money is now flowing to businesses. New grants are on offer through two key initiatives under the Strategy, and successful projects have been announced under Round 2 of the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund (MMF), the Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI), and the Commercialisation Fund. The Manufacturing Collaboration Stream, the largest element of the Strategy, has launched and will provide $800m towards transformative, industry-led projects that will spur private sector investment and job creation through business-to-business and business-to-research collaboration. Funding of between $20m and $200m is available to cover up to 33% of eligible expenditure for projects across the six National Manufacturing Priority areas – Medical Products; Recycling and Clean Energy; Food and Beverage; Defence; Space and Resource Technology and Critical Minerals Processing. Grant applications are also open under the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI), with $50m on offer. Matched grants of between $50,000 and $2m are available under the first round of the initiative to support projects addressing supply chain vulnerabilities across medicines and agricultural production chemicals, identified as sectors of focus in the Sovereign Manufacturing Capability Plan. Four space manufacturers will share $13.9m in grants through round 1 of the Translation and Integration streams of the MMI to grow Australia’s global civil space industry, integrate into global supply chain and commercialise new export opportunities. One of the successful grant recipients, EffusionTech, will receive $1.2m in funding to develop and manufacture lowcost, durable and high-performance liquidfuelled rocket engines for the growing commercial launch market. Under the same streams, $36m was awarded to five medical product manufacturers to scale-up medical production, create highly-skilled jobs, open new export opportunities and build Australia’s economic resilience. This includes $3m to help Perth-based Avicena Systems scale up manufacturing
AMT AUG/SEP 2021
Minister Porter (left) watches a demonstration of Avicena System’s Sentinel COVID-19 rapid screening system with the company’s director Tony Fitzgerald.
of its Sentinel COVID-19 screening system, which can be used to rapidly test more than 90,000 people every day. Also in South Australia, Noumed Pharmaceuticals will receive $20m towards construction of a new $85m state-of-theart manufacturing facility for prescription and over-the-counter medications. Noumed is one of Australia’s largest suppliers of pharmaceuticals but currently manufactures all of its products offshore. The new facility will see its Australian operations become almost entirely selfsufficient, while also creating hundreds of new jobs for South Australian workers. Under Round 2 of the MMF, $55m in grants was awarded to 86 businesses across the country to support manufacturers to invest in modern technologies and equipment to increase productivity, improve capacity and capability and create new jobs. Western Australian Bonissimo Coffee Roasters will use its grant to help reduce the number of plastic-lined coffee cups and coffee pods ending up in landfill by installing $1.4m worth of new equipment to manufacture cups and pods made from bio-polymers that are 100% organic and fully compostable. The upgrade will also enable the company to increase its coffee pod production six-fold, allowing it to hire more staff and pursue new export opportunities for its premium coffee products. Other successful projects include: a lightweight digital health sensor produced in Queensland that sticks to the skin and can provide early warning of cardiac issues; new generation high-output solar panels to be made in South Australia; and a brewery
expansion in New South Wales that will use world-leading thermal energy storage to reduce power consumption and chemical use. Alcolizer Pty Ltd, based in Balcatta Perth, is among six companies to share in funding under the Government’s $30m Commercialisation Fund, which brings together industry and researchers on job-creating projects. Alcolizer will use its $742,363 grant to work with research and industry partners on developing a mass market saliva-based antigen test to detect COVID-19 in asymptomatic and symptomatic patients within ten minutes. This will be achieved by combining Australian patented breakthrough technologies developed by the University of Technology Sydney and hardware technologies developed by Alcolizer, in the form of a new medical device called the Virulizer. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Government see the value of our businesses and that is why we are backing them to innovate and create jobs right across our country. Our Modern Manufacturing Strategy is delivering, and is also backed by the Morrison Government’s plan to take on new apprentices and trainees, lower taxes and the cost of energy and cut red tape. Through support like this we are helping to build a manufacturing sector that can take on the world, create high-value jobs for Australians and deliver a stronger and more resilient economy. More information on the Strategy is available at: www.industry.gov.au/manufacturing.
