My heartfelt thanks go to sponsors, exhibitors, delegates and partners for helping to make the 2005 APIA Convention and Exhibition in Adelaide such a memorable event. Thanks also to Steve Dobbie, Bob Gration, Sarah Leavitt and Conference Coordinators for their work, both behind the scenes and publicly, ensuring that such a major event ran smoothly.
I would also like to congratulate our new Board members and office bearers. Mark Harper took over the reins from Mark Twycross as President and has immediately demonstrated his interest in and dedication to APIA as well as his determination to make our Association a major voice of the energy industries. I also welcome Christine O’Reilly to her new role of Vice President, Graeme Fitzgerald to his new task as Treasurer and our new Board Members, Peter Cox representing the younger generation of industry managers and Max Kimber, who is returning to a Board position to offer his wealth of experience in the pipeline industry. The APIA secretariat is looking forward to working with the Board in 2006.
The Young People’s Forum will be held in Canberra on Friday and Saturday, 5-6 May 2006. The Forum’s committee will be working diligently on a program which will include seminar topics, discussion groups and a dinner on the Friday evening. The proposal is receiving tremendous support throughout the industry and it will be important for those who employ young people to demonstrate their support by encouraging their employees to attend. We are in a competitive marketplace for the young and talented. Not only do we need to encourage young people to join our industry – we must also keep the ones who have joined. The networking and cross-profession support in this industry is outstanding amongst the stalwarts and it’s now time to ensure the next generation gets the pipeliner “˜bug’ and chooses to stay in order to experience an interesting and varied career. The Forum will be part of that process, providing an opportunity for young pipeliners – from all sectors of the industry – to exchange ideas and gain a greater understanding of a range of industry issues and challenges.
Training is also a major focus, with a new construction training program being developed. It will operate in conjunction with universities and technical colleges and APIA is working with the government’s training body to develop the proposal.
The Regulatory Affairs Committee has been hard at work in the lead up to the release of the Government’s response to the Productivity Commission report on the gas transmission industry. The Ministerial Council on Energy was supposed to have provided its response after its meeting on 4 November. However, we heard that they were not on the right track. We decided that no decision was better than a wrong decision and conducted an extremely focussed lobbying campaign with all State Ministers and senior officials. While the Ministers were criticised in some quarters for delaying their decision, APIA was quietly pleased to have halted a poor decision, giving us another chance to try to get a sensible outcome for our industry. A further round of consultation was provided and a decision was promised for 7 December. At the time of writing a decision had still not been reached.
We have further challenges ahead, with the Government delaying a decision on some of the PC recommendations. They have set up an industry leaders Working Group to look at establishment of a Wholesale Gas Market (for which APIA fought hard to get fair representation for the transmission industry); set up an “˜expert panel’ to look at pricing issues and the industry’s access to merit review of regulators’ decisions continues to be under threat. APIA will maintain efforts to get the best outcome possible for the industry in difficult circumstances.
Cheryl Cartwright
Chief Executive