Front page news: August 8-14, 2007-2015
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August 14, 2007: A delegation from Ararat Rural City Council has travelled to Brunei today to promote local produce.
Council representatives will meet with senior Brunei Government officials in anticipation of eventually exporting local food produce to the kingdom.
Ararat Rural City mayor, Cr Ian Wilson, chief executive officer Stephen Chapple and manager rural city development Mark Hogan, together with local grains producer Rob Armstrong have travelled to Brunei and will promote Grampians regional produce alongside several other Victorian municipalities and food companies.
The entire Victorian delegation of 50 people will attend meetings set up by Regional Development Victoria to promote their respective local produce and food packaging capabilities, as well as take part in the International Halal Product Expo 2007 which will be officially opened by the Sultan of Brunei.
Cr Wilson said council had identified an opportunity to tap into the multi billion dollar halal food industry, which is consumed by 1.8 billion of the Muslim faith in the world.
Their faith requires them to only consume food and beverages that have been certified as being halal.
August 8, 2008: The Alexandra Oval Reserve Committee of Management has urged Ararat Rural City councillors to delay their vote on the decision on whether to locate a proposed indoor recreation and aquatics centre at Kokoda Park or Alexandra Oval.
Consultant architects recommended Kokoda Park as the preferred location.
Council is expected to make its decision at the August 19 council meeting.
The committee of management has sent letters to each councillor outlining its concerns over the recommendation.
Following a public meeting, the committee met and discussed the report presented to councillors concerning the preferred option.
In the letter to councillors, the committee said it was disappointing that the recommended option was not the Alexandra Oval Reserve.
‘‘However, we are more disappointed with the process that has led to this decision,’’ committee chairperson Tim Cronin said.
‘‘The consultation process considered the views of a diverse range of user groups, and the Alexandra Oval Reserve committee of management has been one of these. In fact, it was the main reference group.
‘‘Throughout the consultation process we provided information to the consultants at a number of meetings. However, we feel that our views and recommendations have been largely ignored in the final report.’’
August 10, 2010: The first container of the Grampians Pyrenees Wine Co-operative’s Ararat Gold Shiraz is bound for Taishan in China later this month.
Co-operative chairman Gary Rice along with Ararat Rural City Council’s economic development manager, Clyde Humphries jointly announced confirmation of the Co-op’s first sale in to China.
“Since undertaking the Wine Expo in Taishan in May, there have been lengthy discussions between the Taishan Government, the Co-op and Council,” Mr Humphries said.
“Unlike a normal trade agreement, the entity that was granted the rights to distribute the premium Ararat Gold brand through Guangdong Province had to meet certain trading and government standards before being endorsed by both Ararat and Taishan officials.
“Today we are happy to announce that Taishan’s Yu Chang Wine Company will be the endorsed distributor for the province.”
Mr Rice said it had been a long but worthwhile road that the nine wineries had travelled to this point since being invited by Council early last year to consider forming a co-operative to market wine in to China.
“We are literally seeing the fruits of our labour about to be bottled and shipped to Taishan,” Mr Rice said.
August 9, 2011: AME Systems chairman and managing director Peter Carthew has called on members of the opposition to use their position and voices in parliament to advocate a better outcome not only for AME Systems, but for manufacturing and regional industry throughout Australia.
Mr Carthew shared the organisation’s concerns about the Gillard Government’s controversial carbon tax with Federal Member for Wannon, Dan Tehan and Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science, Sophie Mirabella when they visited the plant last Wednesday.
Mr Carthew said the carbon tax was the latest in a string of costs and charges which made doing business increasingly difficult.
“The carbon tax is the sort of charge against our business which we cannot recover from an already highly price competitive market place – and in an already tight margin business we are squeezed just that much more,” he said.
“Our advisers have calculated that the cost of the carbon tax to our business in the first year will be upwards of the equivalent cost of employing one additional person in the business.”
August 10, 2012: Sub contractors involved in the Hopkins Correctional Centre debacle have asked the State Government to set up a system to protect businesses involved in other large scale contracts to ensure a similar situation does not occur in the future.
Premier Ted Baillieu visited the Ararat Prison site on Sunday after Friday’s announcement of the deal struck between the State Government and the Commonwealth and Bendigo and Adelaide Banks, which will see the project recommence and sub contractors paid.
Sub contractors were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars after St Hilliers Ararat, the company contracted to build the 350-bed prison expansion, went into liquidation on May, followed by the Aegis Consortium overseeing the project being placed into voluntary administration in June.
Grant Wright from Tybrad Roofing, one of the contractors who attended Sunday’s meeting with the Premier, said the majority of the contractors met in Ararat on Friday and the relief was indescribable.
“There is probably not a word in the dictionary that can describe the relief and the joy that was on people’s faces, because for four months we’ve had no word or any security that those demands were going to be met,” Mr Wright said.
“Four months’ worth of hard work and perseverance brought some type of closure and today (Sunday) has been another bit of closure and the next section of it will obviously come down to the Commonwealth Bank to stand up and deliver what they’re promising.”
August 12, 2014: A one hundred-strong crowd left Federal Member for Wannon, Dan Tehan in no doubt of where it stands on the future of the Renewable Energy Target (RET), at a public meeting at the Crowlands Hall last Thursday.
Mayors of Ararat Rural City, Northern Grampians Shire and Pyrenees Shire Councils spoke alongside representatives of farming, small business and community groups in an effort to highlight to Mr Tehan the importance of retaining the RET so four windfarm projects can proceed.
At present the project’s futures are uncertain as the Federal Government undertakes a review into the RET.
Mr Tehan said the feedback he received at the meeting will help inform the views he takes to Canberra on the issue.
“I’ve spoken to my parliamentary colleagues and there is real interest in this issue, the views here, as they will be right across the country will be heard and taken into account,” he said.
“The community here think they (windfarms) are extremely important, however, what we have to do is make sure we get the balance right because the RET favours one industry over another industry.