Mid North Coast prosperity will be on show this week as Nambucca hosts the Building Regional Australia Summit, attracting conference goers state-wide.
Part of the drive to host this gathering in this valley is to exhibit the incredible transformation of a meatworker village to niche manufacturing hub – riverside Macksville, 15 minutes from Nambucca RSL’s conference rooms.
When Midco abattoir shut its doors in 1999 there were 350 people who lost their jobs and the place went into a funk. Unemployment climbed to 21 per cent but today it’s back to 8.8 per cent, measured over the past decade, and in that time 1000 new full time jobs were created – so says Nambucca Shire Council’s business development manager Wayne Lowe.
Some of that activity was created by the new Pacific Highway project, with Lendlease employing 140 people to build bridge parts. There is a niche vehicle manufacturing hub, in the industrial estate, that employs 300. And the largest used truck and Isuzu dealership in the country – Mid-Coast Trucks – employs 85 people.
Agriculturally there is beef, dairy, macadamias and a council willing to work with blueberry expansion. The council is developing a greensite industrial park at Cow Creek, on the new highway route, which lies halfway between Brisbane and Sydney.
Meanwhile, event host Foundation for Regional Development’s CEO Peter Bailey said attracting business to country towns required evidence-based persuasion.
At the conference Sen Fiona Nash will talk about the necessary push to move more public service out of Canberra to regional areas so communities can benefit. A talk by economist Dr Terry Rawnsley designed to create debate will ask the question – is infrastructure spending just a sugar hit?