Opposition weighs in on powder
The Victorian Opposition has used the Wimmera’s Australian Plant Proteins development as an example of State Government complacency in shoring up the potential of emerging industry and jobs in regional Victoria.
Nationals leader Peter Walsh said the government should be making it as easy as possible for expansion of the multi-million-dollar industry to happen in Victoria.
He said it was instead pursuing a narrow Melbourne-focused agenda and risking the loss of potential jobs and investment to other states.
“While the Andrews government sinks billions of taxpayer dollars into Melbourne metro projects, game-changing opportunities, such as the Australian Plant Proteins centre, are being ignored,” he said.
Mr Walsh, deputy Opposition leader and shadow regional Victoria and decentralisation minister, said the State Government needed to put itself in a position to help or support regional-investment opportunities.
“This is a $20-million investment in Horsham that can’t get support from the Andrews Labor government,” he said.
“The company already has blueprints to double its infrastructure investment to $40-million and expand its workforce to at least 50 jobs, with further plans for expansion over the next three years.”
Mr Walsh was responding to Australian Plant Proteins spokesman Phil Mcfarlane who, while celebrating a countdown to the Horsham operation, said a $130-million production expansion in Victoria, let alone the Wimmera-mallee, was far from assured.
He explained that much would depend on State Government interest and support and revealed a widening of next-stage-expansion options to include other broadacre farming states such as South Australia.
Value adding
Mr Mcfarlane was referring to government-policy direction and the level of public value-adding investment in utility connections to support emerging industry demand and innovation.
Mr Walsh said Victoria’s regional communities could ill-afford to miss such transformational opportunities.
He said an expanded protein-powder venture would equate to new jobs and open access to new markets for Victorian pulses.
“It’s all hanging in the balance because the Andrews government claims it doesn’t have the money,” he said.
Mr Walsh said the lack of government support risked the project going interstate.
“Australian Plant Proteins is an Australian-made and Australian-owned enterprise,” he said.
“If there is one lesson to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic it’s that we need to bring manufacturing home to Victoria and recapture industry at every level.
“This will strengthen local businesses and provide more local jobs for local people.”
Production of revolutionary highgrade plant-based protein powder in Horsham is on schedule to start in July.
When fully operational, an Australian Plant Proteins factory in Horsham south will operate 24 hours a day, processing tonnes of raw material to meet pressing national and international demand.