Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Shepparton ministerial visit

Incorporated pursuant to order of Council of 7 September 2021:

On Wednesday, 20 July, I had the pleasure of hosting the Treasurer, Tim Pallas, in Shepparton.

The 2022–23 budget allocated $23.78 million to rebuild the site of the former Wanganui Park Secondary College, approximately 600 metres down the road, as the new Verney Road School. Construction is expected to be completed in 2026.

Verney Road is a school for students with mild to moderate intellectual disability.

Verney Road School currently has 227 enrolments, from early years to grade 12.

Thanks to Angela Buxton, principal, as host and to Mayor Shane Sali for joining us.

Following that, we headed to Rubicon Water, whose Shepparton facility has the capacity to produce more than 5000 integrated control gate and meter devices per year.

Australia’s major irrigation water authorities have adopted Rubicon’s technology. The largest implementation to date is in the Goulburn-Murray irrigation district in Victoria.

Rubicon received a $50 000 Asia Gateway voucher in 2018 to assist with their market entry into China and India. Furthermore, Rubicon has participated in numerous Global Victoria trade missions.

Thanks to Rubicon general managers Matt Ryan, Dr Paul Spooner and Leslie Ganci.

Finally, we headed to Flavorite Tatura, where we were delighted to be joined by Water Minister Shing and Flavorite’s Mike Nichol and Chris Millis and we toured their state-of-the art new glasshouse.

With the recent acquisition of Tatura Fresh and Murphy Fresh, Flavorite now spans across 570 000 square metres of production in state-of-the-art glasshouses and protected cropping environments in Warragul, Katunga, Tatura and Mansfield.

The investment will also allow Flavorite to process/package larger volumes of third-party produce that will benefit a range of smaller growers and marketers.