Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about manufacturing, which is alive and well in Indi. Particularly, today I would like to talk about Mars Petcare Australia and acknowledge their fantastic investment in Albury-Wodonga. MPA has three pet food factories in Australia: in Wodonga, in Bathurst and in Wacol in Queensland. The Wodonga site is also the Australian business headquarters. It is an Asia-Pacific regional hub centre for R&D, commercial and engineering, and it is a global service centre. It is the largest pet care supply centre in the Asia-Pacific region. As the largest supplier of the Australian pet food market, Mars Petcare also generates over $100 million per annum in export sales. It employs over 500 people in manufacturing and corporate functions. It has an estimated supplier ecosystem of an additional 500 jobs. There is over $130 million per annum in expenditure with suppliers. It is currently on an expansion path, and I am really grateful and pleased that Mars has made Albury-Wodonga its centre.

There are three other areas I would briefly like to touch on that Mars is responsible for: freight and infrastructure services, using quality raw material services, and building excellent supply relationships. Mars Petcare relies on both road and rail freight to manage time-critical delivery of products to customers throughout Australia. It needs world-class regional road and rail infrastructure. It also relies on services such as energy, gas and electricity, for managing the manufacturing. (Time expired)