CEO Update|End of another financial year

As we come to the end of another financial year, we are again faced with uncertainty and border closures due to COVID-19.  It appears we will continue to live and work with these conditions for some time to come.  The most important point is to ensure we don’t become complacent and continue to be able to modify our operations very quickly as the operating conditions changes.

In this CEO update I will provide an overview of the key activities that have been undertaken and progressed over the last month.

Greenlife Industry Australia Board Meeting

The GIA Board met on 22 June with the key items of business being governance, financials, strategy implementation, nursery industry insurance, Hort Innovation, the Australian Plant Production Standard and staffing arrangements in light of recent and impending staff movements.  The Board has a particular focus on the financials as we look to close the 2021 financial year with a slight surplus and finalise the budget for FY22 for approval.

Advocacy is a key imperative for GIA, and Glenn Fenton and I had a meeting with Minister Littleproud last week in Canberra.  We were both lucky to get there given the evolving COVID situation.  We discussed a range of issues including biosecurity, quarantine, the greenlife industry importance to horticulture, Hort Innovation and acknowledged the Minister’s support of the industry as an ‘essential service’ during the COVID-19 pandemic.  More details are contained in the separate article in the newsletter.

Greenlife Industry Careers Hub

After the completion of the Nursery Industry Careers Pathway project, a number of outputs are now available for the greenlife industry.  An excellent output is the Greenlife Careers Hub which is a one-stop shop for prospective employees and employers looking to enter the industry, recruit new staff or develop themselves professionally.  This new hub includes training support networks and systems, a skilled careers promotion toolkit and promotions, a web-based central training resources hub and a career jobs and pathways guide with case studies.  Full details are contained in the separate article in this newsletter.

Polypropylene Plant Packaging Recycling (PoPPr) Program

An industry workshop for the PoPPr program was conducted on 22 June with around 30 industry participants attending.  The PoPPr program is the greenlife industry approach to developing a ‘circular economy’ approach to the recycling of all plastic plant packaging used.

The objective of the workshop was to provide an update on progress with the program.  The most important achievement is the completion of Stage 1 – Business Case Development.  Peter Allan of Sustainable Resource Use conducted the work to develop the business case and presented his findings at the workshop.  The most important message from Peter was that there is “strong confidence in achieving circular recycling for plant packaging in Australia and become a world leader”.  The next phase of the program is Stage 2 which is the design of the recycling scheme.

Plant Health Australia (PHA) Meetings

One of the biannual meetings of PHA was held over 31 May and 1 June.  It was a hybrid meeting with a number of attendees being in Sydney with the majority online.  The format worked reasonably well, the key being have a very good IT technician and good IT equipment.  The meetings included the Plant Industry Forum, PHA General Meeting, PHA Members Forum and Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed Signatories Meeting.  John McDonald (on-line) and I (in-person) made it through the two days.

I am the Chair of the Plant Industry Forum which covers the particular areas of interest in plant biosecurity for plant industry members of PHA including – Greenlife Industry Australia, 30 peak industry bodies for fruit, vegetable and nut production, grain producers, grape & wine, forest products, cotton, cane growers and rice growers.  The members of the plant industry members of PHA contribute around $40B to Australia’s farm gate value.