Business bulletin: 9 March 2023

The Territory Government’s 2023 Working Holiday Maker campaign has kicked off targeting hospitality and tourism workers to the Territory ahead of the peak tourism season.

Launched across Australia last week, the Get paid to do this campaign targets young working holiday makers already in Australia. The UK and German campaign, NT Backpacking Academy will roll out in the UK and Germany next month.

Both campaigns are designed to appeal to independent travellers aged between 18-35 so they consider travelling to the Northern Territory for a life experience and working holiday.

Tourism NT has partnered with youth trade partners Backpacker Deals, STA Travel and Trailfinders Travel Academy. These partners will provide a conversion point for consumers who have engaged with the campaigns and wish to book travel components and packages to NT.

The new campaigns leverage last year’s working holiday maker campaign, Work Hard, Play Hard. The campaigns are in addition to the Territory Government’s Global Worker Attraction Program which includes a targeted marketing campaign and in-country information sessions in the UK and Ireland from 8-14 March 2023.

If you're a Northern Territory business, Aboriginal enterprise or not-for-profit, you can get help from a Small Business Champion (SBC) to identify the types of support your business can access that is relevant to your current and future business needs.

Mick Sinclair is a member of the Top End Business and Workforce team that services the rural area of Darwin, the Daly region, including Wadeye, Tiwi Islands, and West Arnhem including Jabiru and Maningrida. There is a Territory-wide network of SBC’s based in all major regional NT centres on hand to give you this support.

“I love working with inspirational business people and I get a real kick out of seeing them succeed,” says Mr Sinclair. “People have great ideas and overcome all sorts of adversity, I have seen them adapt to the challenges and diversify their streams of income to great success.”

Mr Sinclair was a Defence contractor in North Queensland and here in the Territory before joining the NT public service five years ago.  His current business clients in the Darwin rural area are diverse and includes Aboriginal tourist operations, organic farmers, food van operators and everything in between.

Curled Ice Cream is a husband-and-wife food van business based in Darwin’s rural region that has grown over the last few years from trading locally to now be able to offer franchise opportunities nationally.

Owners Craig and Darlene Finck acknowledge that their success has been helped greatly by ongoing support on their journey from NT Government Small Business Champion Mick Sinclair.

Specifically Mr Sinclair was able to offer support to the owners under the Business Pivot Program to create a new frozen product line now available at the Deckchair Cinema. They also accessed the Business Growth Program for development of the franchise contract package.

“The timing was right after the COVID challenge to ask businesses to think differently about what they offer to manage changing operating risks and to support it with the appropriate funding to find alternatives ways to operate”, Mr Sinclair clarified.

The Territory SBC teams continue to support business to navigate the extensive range of support and funding programs available to them in their business journey.

Get in touch with our Small Business Champions by calling 1800 193 111 or email businessinfo@nt.gov.au

A senior research horticulturalist from the Arid Zone Research Institute (AZRI) will participate in an international research tour this month to help advance the Territory’s date industry.

Dr Girija Page, is one of 3 Australians selected to participate in an international date industry capacity building tour to India, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Israel.

Dr Page said it is wonderful to represent the Northern Territory as part of the date industry capacity building tour.

“Advancing information on the profitable and sustainable production and supply chains of this high value fruit crop will benefit horticultural systems here in the NT and in Australia.”

Date farming is an existing and emerging industry in the Northern Territory. Work is underway at AZRI in collaboration with date growers to support the industry here in the Territory.

Capacity building in date production and supply chains is critical to take the date industry forward in the Territory.

The tour, which is supported by AgriFutures Australia and the Australian Date Growers Association (ADGA) is an opportunity to exchange knowledge about date production and supply systems. The delegation will visit some of the best date farms, research and production facilities in the world.

Gary Doak, Vice Chair ADGA said the tour will build a bridge in expanding the links with established date growers and research organisations in key date growing regions overseas.

“Improving our  knowledge in best practice of the date supply chain will be most valuable in reducing risks for the Australian date industry and will hopefully encourage new entrants to establish operations in the dry inland areas suitable for cultivation.”

The tour will run from March to April.

A cleaner, more affordable and greener future for the Tiwi Islands is a step closer with Circular Solutions awarded a design and construct tender for a renewable pilot program in Wurrumiyanga.

The Northern Territory Government is investing $8.6 million over 4 years towards its Renewables Remote Power Program. This includes $6.1 million towards the Wurrumiyanga Solar infill and Energy Storage Pilot Project.

Circular Solutions will replace some of the current diesel generated power supply with renewable technology, with works expected to be completed by April 2024.

Wurrimuyanga is already operating some solar technology and this investment will significantly increase the energy generated from solar, with the installation of additional solar PV panels and a new battery energy storage system.

The project will add 1.1 megawatts of additional solar PV and a Battery Energy Storage System of about 3 megawatt hours. It is expected that the percentage of renewable energy delivered to the community will increase to almost 50 per cent.

The Territory Government is also investing $2 million over the next 2 year to advance the delivery of clean reliable electricity to remote communities across the Territory. This investment has so far resulted in a framework to deliver renewable energy systems to the 73 remote communities supplied by the Indigenous Essential Services (IES).

The Wurrumiyanga pilot project is an important step towards the Territory Governments target of 50 per cent renewables by 2030, which includes a 70 per cent target in all communities supplied by the IES.

Territory exporters are urged to start preparing for the next round of Austrade’s Export Market Development Grants with applications for round 3, opening on 15 March 2023.

Austrade’s Export Market Development Grant program helps Australian businesses grow their exports in international markets.

Grants are available for eligible promotional actives undertaken by small to medium sized exporters (SME). Grants are available in 3 tiers with each providing a different level of support for SMEs as they grow their export markets. The tiers are:

• Ready to export
• Exporting and expanding
• Exporting, expanding and strategic shift.

Businesses don’t have to start a tier 1 and progress to tier 2 and 3. They can apply for any grant at any time depending on their business needs.

The updated grant guidelines and supporting documents are now available enabling businesses to prepare before the online portal opens to applications.

Applications will be open for 4 week and close on Friday 14 April 2023.

For more information, go to the Australian Government's Australian Trade and Investment Commission website.