Member Update: AREEA members meet Prime Minister and eight Coalition Ministers

LAST Wednesday evening (22 October), AREEA hosted an exclusive Dinner with the Coalition Leadership event where 40 executive leaders from an extensive cross section of our membership engaged directly with Australia’s Prime Minister and eight Ministers from the Australian Government.

This Canberra event provided a unique opportunity for senior representatives from Australia’s resource industry to hear from key political decision makers and discuss important policy issues impacting their individual businesses and our wider industry.

The raft of issues explored included workplace relations reform, new bilateral trade agreements, coastal shipping reforms, deregulation and removal of project ‘red tape’, the repeal of the mining and carbon taxes and improved environmental approval processes.

Each of the intending Ministers, including the Prime Minister, addressed the delegation and spoke very positively on many of the policy positions and reforms AREEA has consistently advocated in recent years. Attendees included:

• Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia
• Warren Truss, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development
• Julie Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs
• Ian Macfarlane, Minister for Industry
• Eric Abetz, Minister for Employment
• Andrew Robb, Minister for Trade and Investment
• Greg Hunt, Minister for the Environment
• Nigel Scullion, Minister for Indigenous Affairs
• Barnaby Joyce, Minister for Agriculture

AREEA received highly positive feedback from all attendees on the level of engagement provided by this event and the unrivalled assembly of Australian political leaders in the room. Discussions across the evening were very valuable to progressing AREEA’s vision for Australia’s resource industry to remain a competitive and attractive place to invest, do business, employ people and contribute to our national prosperity.

I wish to express my appreciation of the time given by the senior leaders from our membership to attend Wednesday’s Dinner with the Coalition Leadership. Member participation in significant AREEA events such as this reinforce AREEA’s strong relationships, influence and wider industry advocacy with the Australian Government.

The ongoing support we receive from our members enables AREEA to maintain and expand our representative work across critical policy areas impacting all parts of Australia’s resource industry. It ensures our industry can grow and remain the cornerstone of our national economic wellbeing.

AREEA looks forward to continuing to advance the interests of our members and to actively influencing the government’s policy agenda in 2015 and beyond. The AREEA 2014 Activities Report, distributed to all members along with AREEA’s 2015 membership renewal information, outlines the breadth of AREEA’s policy and influence work for all parts of our diverse membership.

If any AREEA member wishes to receive a confidential briefing on the issues discussed at the Canberra Dinner with the Coalition Leadership, please email [email protected] or call 1800 627 771, and I will arrange for one of AREEA’s executive directors to brief you directly.

Steve Knott
Chief Executive, AREEA