Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On Monday night, here in Parliament House, we took Wollongong to the world, as the University of Wollongong and I hosted the inaugural Illawarra Clean Energy Expo. Although this building is the home of Australian democracy, on Monday you could feel the power of the Illawarra in the room. The atmosphere was absolutely electric. Special thanks must go to the university for working with me to make this concept a reality. A very, very special thank you to the key organisers: Vice-Chancellor Professor Patricia Davidson; Director of the Energy Futures Network, Ty Christopher; Director of Government Relations, Canio Fierravanti, who is well known in the corridors of Parliament House; and Heidi De Coster and her husband, Greg, from Protocol at the University of Wollongong.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge the powerhouse of organisations that were present on Monday night. From BlueScope Steel, we had Iain McDonald, Manager, Carbon Abatement, Future Technologies and Sarah Ward, Manager, Climate Change Communications. From BOC gases, we had Chris Dolman, Daniel Mills and Vesna Olles. From Business Illawarra, we had Adam Zarth, who I work with quite often as well. From Ecojoule, we had Tony Ferguson and Mike Wishart. From Green Gravity, we had Tania Jones, Tim Robertson and Mark Swinnerton. From Gridsight, we had Brendan Banfield, Robyn Dawson and Brad Smith. From Hysata, we had Paul Barrett, Parchi Agrawal and Duncan Bremner. From I3net, we had Michelle Christodoulou. From Blend Esq, we had Robyn Johnson. From NSW Ports, we had Marika Calfas, the CEO, Paul Barrett, Campbell Mason and Greg Walls. From Oceanex, we had Tim Black, Tim Donnan, Jordan Glanville, Sarah Guilfoyle, Thomas Hansen and Karly Spronk. From Project and Portfolio Management, we had Rodger Bowman, Troy McDonald and Dorian Van Zyl. From Rewiring Australia, we had Kate Minter and Francis Veierboom. From South Coast Labour Council, we had Arthur Rorris. From Sicona, we had Christiaan Jordaan and Andrew Minett. From Squadron Energy, we had Jason Wiloughby, Ben Deer, Emma Leslie and Rochelle Macdonald. From Wise Energy, we had Michelle Hoess, Damian Vaquera, Brittney Woodgate and Alex Yates. And from Wollongong City Council, we had Mitch Golding and Mark Grimson.

Finally, we had the fantastic exhibitors from the University of Wollongong which, as Minister Chris Bowen, said is an institution. It has used its nation-leading research facilities to put the Illawarra on the cutting edge of innovation that is being conducted through the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre, the School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering, ARC future grids training centre, the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space, the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, the Australian Power Quality and Reliability Centre, the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials and the Innovation and Commercial Research Unit. These facilities do some amazing work for our local area. Special mention should also go to Craig McLauchlan, Raad Raad, Kashem Muttaqi, Marjo Niemela, Chantel Carr, Natasha Larkin, Freya Croft, Camille Goodman, Zahra Shahbazian, Jason David, Sean Elphick and Jon Knott. The Illawarra's world-class innovation and expertise were demonstrated by a large attendance by Canberra's diplomatic community, all of whom were keen to learn, partner and collaborate on our expertise.

We in the Illawarra are already changing our practices and reducing our emissions, introducing new technologies and activities to move quickly, efficiently and safely towards a clean energy future. The Australian government is investing in a range of projects with local partners, all meant to boost the Illawarra's preparedness for the changing energy future. Some of these include investing more than $1 million in a University of Wollongong study finding ways to keep Australia's grid secure; the Energy Future Skills Centre; the Renewable Energy Skills Training Centre at TAFE; $9 million for Hysata; 400 community batteries across the country, including one in Warrawong; and we're one of the first six proposed sides for offshore wind energy. We've also got more than 900 additional places at the University of Wollongong—an amazing contribution by the Albanese Labor government.

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