Chairman for the day Neil Salvano proposed the toast to Rotary International and the meeting got underway.

Visitors:

  • Ian Hovey; Des Benjamin; John Cinnamon, Petaluma Sunrise Club and Sue Makovfin; Rana Ebrahimi; Suvam Ganguli; Michael Lapina Jnr; Briana Lapina; Alex Lapina; Connie Overton.

Announcements:

  • Club lunch to celebrate our 30th anniversary.  Sunday, 7 May at the RACV club, $75 per person, dress smart casual, bookings by 1 May. Contact Tom Callander 0418 332 019.  [More details in separate Bulletin item]
  • Wine and Spirit Auction, Saturday 20th May 8 pm at Victoria Tower, Southbank. A fund raiser for our Schools in Laos project. Contact Peter Duras 0413 599 121. [More details in separate Bulletin item]

New Member induction:

President Justine welcomed Rana Ebrahimi into the club.

Directors Report:

  • Kevin Love then gave an update and a big thank you to the club for the support in running the district conference.

The surprise of the morning was then the presentation of a sapphire Paul Harris award to Ian Hovey for his great work with our conference, and preceding district conferences over many years. District Governor Neville John also presented Ian with a Certificate of Appreciation.

Kevin showed a video of the conference closing finale by the mass choir conducted by Michael Lapina.

  • President Justine also thanked the club, each and every member, for the great work over the course of the conference and in all preceding two years.
  • A reminder to all, that if you don't want to keep your conference T-shirt or your conference shoulder bag, please bring to next meeting and Frank O’Brien will recycle through ‘DIK’ [ Donations in Kind].

Guest Speaker Presentation:

 

Michael Kilgariff,  Australian Logistics Council.

"Australias National Freight Supply Chain Strategy"

 

Michael is CEO and Managing Director of the Australian Logistics Council.  He holds a degree in Economics from the Australian National University and is also a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors Diploma and Advanced Diploma courses. Michael has a diverse background and leadership experience in industry, industry associations and government, at the national and state/territory level.

 

Michael’s father was a Rotarian and he noted that his sister was the first female Rotarian in Australia when she joined rotary at Alice Springs club.

 

The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has committed the Australian Government to developing a National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy in the 2016 Annual Infrastructure Statement to Parliament. In that speech he also committed the Government to building the inland rail from Melbourne to Brisbane.

 

Unlocking the agricultural and mining potential of Australia’s inland is a perennial commercial theme.  One of the modern solutions is the long-touted inland railway between Melbourne and Brisbane.  A project of this size could be equivalent to the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme that generated so much economic growth for Australia in the mid-20th Century.

 

Michael Kilgariff,  Australian Logistics Council.

"Australias National Freight Supply Chain Strategy"

Michael is CEO and Managing Director of the Australian Logistics Council.  He holds a degree in Economics from the Australian National University and is also a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors Diploma and Advanced Diploma courses. Michael has a diverse background and leadership experience in industry, industry associations and government, at the national and state/territory level.

Michael’s father was a Rotarian and he noted that his sister was the first female Rotarian in Australia when she joined rotary at Alice Springs club.

The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has committed the Australian Government to developing a National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy in the 2016 Annual Infrastructure Statement to Parliament. In that speech he also committed the Government to building the inland rail from Melbourne to Brisbane.

Unlocking the agricultural and mining potential of Australia’s inland is a perennial commercial theme.  One of the modern solutions is the long-touted inland railway between Melbourne and Brisbane.  A project of this size could be equivalent to the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme that generated so much economic growth for Australia in the mid-20th Century.

The Government will be undertaking a project to map nationally significant supply chains as part of a project to develop a National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy.  This project will give greater understanding of where product is moving and how it’s being moved.

Michael said that Melbourne is Australia's freight logistics capital. However, there are a lot of challenges the face Melbourne to make sure that our capital remains the leading rates logistics centre in the country. Australia has many challenges on the infrastructure front to support the viability of the freight Logistics industry.

Melbourne is expected to be Australia's largest city by the middle of the century. According to the Victorian pictures paper published by the government last year Melbourne is expected to grow in size to a population of 8,000,000 x 2050. This is a lot of people in a confined space by any measure. The first question that follows from this, is where are these people going to live and is the traffic infrastructure going to be able to cope with the increased numbers

From the Australian logistics council point of view and the organisations which we represent, the first question is how are we going to be able to efficiently deliver the goods all these people require.

How do we ensure the efficiency of our supply chains? The delivery of all goods and services in Melbourne rely heavily on transport at every level. Efficient planning therefore at this stage is crucial.

The core activity of the Australian logistics council is to ensure that governments local councils and other interested parties are aware of the importance of good planning.

The freight logistics industry in Australia represents about 8.6% of the Australian economy. This by any measure is a very large number. The council estimates that if they can squeeze another 1% efficiency out of the supply chain then this will provide approximately $2 billion benefit to the economy. Many companies support the chain at sea, air, intranodal ports, rail and road depots. The ALC looks at all these points in supply chain and lobbies government improvement. Supply chain planning is therefore bought to government attention at every point at all planning stages. As part of their role in the good governing Australia

The National transport commission, which is owned by the Commonwealth and state governments, expects that the National freight supply chain will grow by 26% over the next 10 years. This does not take into account where the country may be by 2050. The current road infrastructure is already struggling with the transport supply chain issues. Wrote congestion is part of this problem that we all see every day

The ALC lobbied government in the lead up to the last federal election that they needed to look carefully at the supply freight strategy.

National Infrastructure Australia, is Australia's independent umpire looking at infrastructure decisions, and makes recommendations to government about which projects infrastructure funding.

One of the most frustrating issues faced by freight companies in Australia is the  hodgepodge of regulations that govern the industry across all states and territories. This results in slow transport times and a greater operating cost for the transport industry. This eventually means higher costs for you to consumers. The European Union by comparison has managed to break down a lot of the inter country barriers to freight transport. The ALC was quite pleased last year when the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, announced that he would continue with the national supply chain strategy.

If this whole freight Logistics industry is not planned correctly now, Australia's future economic prospects to generate new job opportunities and ensure efficient delivery of goods to our ports and airports for export are at risk.

Our international agreements on trade rely heavily on the efficiency of our supply chain for maximum benefits to be achieved.

The ALC needs to assess where government are in their implementation of the supply chain strategy. Government performance in this area is poor and the governments over time have not implemented the strategies.

One of the biggest restrictions to transport, is the issue of freight moving through residential areas in the evening. Part of the planning issue is also related to the fact that planners allow residential development next to freeways and major transport hubs. This results in pressure from residents want wanting to curtail freight activity after hours. The result of this is that government needs to protect freight corridors from these incursions in the future for both existing corridors and future. This poor planning is reflected at Fisherman’s Bend where eighty thousand people will be living in close proximity to freeways and exit ramps servicing the port.

The government has leased the Port Melbourne for the next 50 years to a private operator. The ALC is very supportive of this action because we need to work the port hard to maintain output and to triple output of the port over that time to meet demand. This will result in the movement of between 7 to 8 million containers per year. At the moment, there are about 2.5 million containers through the port each year.

Melbourne also needs to develop a port rail shuttle and take more trucks off the road to meet the increase in traffic movement around the ports, to country Victoria and Australia wide. At the moment rail has less than 10% of the overall freight transportation. Tracks cannot deal with the increased demand on future movements of freight. Technology will play a big part and how we price and support our infrastructure in the future.  This needs to be looked at carefully in the overall development process of a transport strategy. Currently fuel tax maintains our road infrastructure but other forms of taxation and charges will be needed to support the growing logistics infrastructure. Electric vehicles will only exacerbate the lack of fuel tax in the future for the support of the road network.

 

The swindle jackpots for a further week.

President Justine closed the meeting.