Mineral sands mining is a well-established activity and a significant employer in the NGSR with the raw resource being processed in Muchea before being exported from Kwinana Port. There are numerous potential projects in the region for future mining development.

Considerable reserves of high-value mineral sands, including high quality lime sand and silica sand, are a significant state resource with strong global demand. Lime sand, used to reduce soil acidity, is incredibly important for the State’s agricultural productivity. Silica sand has many industrial uses, such as glass production, construction and ceramics.

The Emu Downs and Badgingarra wind farms produce 210MW of the approximately 600 MW of wind energy produced in WA alone7. The recently announced Yandin project will produce an additional 214MW as the State’s largest wind farm that will be able to power 200,000 homes.

With natural amenity, proximity to Perth International Airport and high-profile tourist attractions such as the Pinnacles, Lesueur National Park, access to New Norcia and increasingly food trails, the Sub- region is in a key position for future tourism development.

Wave Rock is a major tourism icon for WA and by far the most popular tourist attraction in the Wheatbelt South sub-region. A natural rock formation in the shape of an ocean wave approximately 14m tall and over 100m in length is located near the town of Hyden in the Shire of Kondinin.

The Wave Rock is the largest of a number of similar, albeit smaller examples of this geological phenomenon in the sub- region. Wave Rock attracts over 140,000 visitors per year who are supported by a diverse range of local accommodation options and services. In addition to Wave Rock visitors also enjoy other attractions of the broader Hyden Wildlife Park, including Aboriginal tours and heritage attractions, wildflowers and Australian fauna.

The Dryandra Woodlands, is another unique and popular natural attraction in the Wheatbelt South. Located between the towns of Cuballing, Narrogin, Wandering and Williams, the Dryandra Woodlands covers approximately 28,000 hectares and features the largest remnant of original vegetation in the western Wheatbelt.

With increasing international trade and interstate interconnectivity, disease control and biosecurity is likely to become an even greater consideration for industry. The management of pests such as stable fly is essential in a region with animal industries producing waste products that are a food source for the flies. A threat to animal welfare, stable fly also affects human life, local fauna and industries such as tourism.

The regulation of poultry manure, post-harvest vegetable crop waste, and intensive agriculture waste products disposal may reduce stable fly numbers. Creating value from waste associated with intensive agriculture is an emerging opportunity for the NGSR. Power generation, fertiliser, gelatine and insect production, and food products from second and third grade produce and agricultural by- products present value-adding opportunities.

With the expanding population of the NGSR and surrounds, the need for appropriately managed waste facilities will only increase in importance. Shire commitments to a reduction in the per capita kilograms of waste sent to landfill and increased recycling have further highlighted the need for better waste management capacity into the future.

The Queensland Government's Queensland Train Manufacturing Program will build 65 new six-car passenger trains at a purpose-built manufacturing facility at Torbanlea, in the Maryborough region.

The program will include a partnership with local schools to train students to be the next generation of the local engineering and manufacturing workforce.

More than 80% of the region’s population is located in the major centres of Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Gympie, Maryborough and Kingaroy. The remaining residents live in predominantly rural shires.

On the coast, extreme inundation and erosion events could become more frequent with rising sea levels. Flooding, due to more intense storms, could affect water, sewerage, stormwater, transport and communications infrastructure. Inland, harsher fire weather and the impact of hotter days and extreme heat events will affect infrastructure.
Tourism is a significant industry in the region with a number of iconic ecosystems and the key tourism areas of Fraser Island, Hervey Bay and South Burnett.

The tourism industry is reliant on healthy reef and rainforest environments. The degradation of the reef will not only be a loss of great intrinsic value, it will also come at a great cost to the tourism industry.

Increased temperatures may lead to less water for agriculture, heat damage to horticultural crops and stress on livestock. Conditions may increase plant diseases, weeds and pests, and allow some pest species to move southwards into areas where they are currently excluded.

The Wide Bay Burnett region is one of the most diverse regions in Queensland, boasting outstanding natural assets and resources, agricultural land, and unique townships.

The region’s agriculture, renewable energy, manufacturing and tourism industries are key contributors to Queensland’s economy.

Traditional industries, including sugarcane and macadamia nut growing are the foundation of world class brands including Bundaberg Sugar, Bundaberg Rum, Bundaberg Ginger Beer and Suncoast Gold Macadamias.

The region also produces citrus, avocados, olives, potatoes, peanuts, beef, fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and seafood.

Is Australia’s housing crisis self-inflicted? If so, then we need a series of reforms to reverse it
The best long-term solution to the structural problems of the rental crisis is to build more public and/or affordable housing.

Make renting more Sustainable. Increase rent assistance or look at rental caps, similar to countries in Europe and some US states, long term tenancy agreements with incentives for all parties to the agreement.

Build to Rent
The Build to Rent property sector is growing in Australia – this new class of housing is focused on providing high quality purpose designed and built rental stock, creating an additional housing choice for Australian renters with greater security and service.

Build to Rent developments are typically owned by institutional investors for the long term and the owner could be the developer/ongoing building manager. The format provides tenants with the flexibility of renting with the security of home ownership.

Build-to-Rent developments are usually large-scale residential properties specifically designed, built and managed for long-term ownership and rental.

Social Housing
In the 40 years between 1981 and 2021 the percentage of all Australian households living in social housing (i.e. state owned and managed public housing or community managed housing) has ranged from 4.9 per cent in 1981 to 3.8 per cent in 2021. Such a drop in the proportion of social housing raises the question of has Australia achieved the balance right, and also just what is the right level of social housing for Australia?

In 2018 Statistics Canada said 628,700 Canadian households, more than one in ten renter households nationally (13.5% of 4,652,500), were living in social and affordable housing.
In New Zealand, as of 30 June 2021, there were 74,337 public housing households. This equates to 4.0% of households living in social housing.

In England (in 2018) 17% of households (3.9 million) lived in social housing, while the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes that 1.2 million households live in public housing, which is 0.98 per cent of all housing.

The Hinkler Innovation Initiative is a community-led initiative striving to foster and champion innovation throughout the Bundaberg Region. Inspired by the pioneering spirit and trailblazing legacy of Bert Hinkler, an innovator and explorer from the Bundaberg Region, this initiative is a platform to bring together global thought leaders and our local innovators to strengthen regional innovation.

The Wide Bay Burnett is rich in a variety of minerals and many mineral projects are ready for investment to take them to the next level. This Prospectus outlines those projects that should be seriously considered.

Identified resources include gold, coal, silver, silica sand, ilmenite, bauxite, copper, nickel, molybdenum, magnetite, kaolin, limestone, apatite, manganese, scandium, feldspar, siltstone, black granite and clay.

The Wide Bay area is a military training area and has been used intensively by artillery regiments and infantry battalions employing armoured vehicles. The Wide Bay Training Area supports 7th Brigade units to conduct combat team training.

The Wide Bay region is recognised as the Gateway to the Southern Great Barrier Reef and includes Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Gympie, Fraser Island, Kingaroy and smaller regional centres. It is the most populated region outside of South-East Queensland.

This region is home to memorable tourism experiences and filled with innovators with ground-breaking ideas that are putting us on the world map.
In June 2019, ex-HMAS Tobruk was scuttled off the coast of Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. Since then, hundreds of people have dived the world-class dive site to view marine wildlife living on the wreck.

Lady Elliot Island has seen an increase in renewable energy infrastructure and it now has the capacity to run on 100% renewable energy. The island has over 653 solar panels and 232 batteries operational across the island.

Bundaberg Regional Council’s Waste Reduction and Recycling Plan that is linked to the Wide Bay-Burnett Regional Waste Management Plan, outlines a clear path forward on how to assist the Bundaberg community to move towards the Queensland Governments aspirational waste reduction and recycling targets of:

reducing the amount of waste generated by 15%
increasing the amount of materials recycled to 60%
increasing the amount of municipal solid waste diverted from landfill to 70%

Wind power is currently the cheapest source of large-scale renewable energy. It involves generating electricity from the naturally occurring power of the wind. Wind turbines capture wind energy within the area swept by their blades. The spinning blades drive an electrical generator that produces electricity for export to the grid.

The Women In Leadership program supports women in the Greater Whitsunday region who have the potential and drive to be workplace and/or community leaders. This program has been designed to help women grow and develop their leadership skills and opportunities especially if they’re interested in a leadership role, being on a committee or board, or wanting to step up in the organisation.

The Women in Leadership program combines face-to-face learning, personalised mentoring and industry networking to facilitate the following opportunities:
• Identify and leverage your individual strengths.
• Build self-awareness and confidence in skills and capabilities.
• Identify leadership skills.
• Develop a network of other local leaders.

The next Women In Leadership Program round will be announced soon.

Who can work from home?
The ability for people to do their job from home is strongly tied to their occupation and the tasks they are required to perform. Working from home is particularly suited to office-based workers such as managers, professionals and clerical and administrative workers, where workers use computers, interact less with the public, do not perform outdoor work or physical activity, and do not work with immovable structures, materials or equipment.
Census data from 2016 shows that approximately 35% of workers had jobs that were amenable to working from home. This potential to work from home is associated with higher levels of education and higher incomes, and full-time jobs.

Why didn’t these people work from home before the pandemic?
Prior to the pandemic, the technology allowing many people to work from home existed — but very few took it up. HILDA data show that, in 2019, around 8% of employees had a formal work-from-home arrangement, and worked a median of one day per week from home. Overall, around 2% of total hours were worked from home. Census data from 2016 also suggests that a small proportion of workers (5%) worked from home instead of commuting on census day.
A number of reasons can be advanced for low take-up of work-from-home arrangements prior to the pandemic. Management practices and cultural norms in workplaces, and stigma associated with working from home, may have discouraged remote work. Firms would have been reluctant to invest in the technology and systems for large-scale working from home, given uncertainty about its benefits. As the CEO of Morgan Stanley explained in 2020:
If you’d said three months ago that 90% of our employees will be working from home and the employer would be functioning fine, I’d say that is a test I’m not prepared to take because the downside of being wrong on that is massive. (Cutter 2020)

Work health and safety laws aim to protect the health, safety and welfare of all workers at work. The laws also protect the health and safety of all other people who might be affected by the work.
In every work environment, there are hazards that could cause your workers harm. The word risk describes how likely that harm is to happen and how severe that harm could be.

Some risks are obvious, like the risk of falls from an unmarked ledge, or burns from a hot oven. Other risks are harder to see, like muscle strain from repetitive work activities, or the stress caused by bullying.
A great way to reduce the number of risks in your business is to design your place of work, work tasks and the way you use equipment to be safe. This will mean you’re less likely to introduce risks that then have to be managed.

To protect your workers from injury, all Queensland employers should follow a four-step risk management process. This will help you identify hazards, assess risks, find ways to control those risks, and then make sure those controls keep working.

Following this simple process will help your business meet its responsibilities under work health and safety laws.

Assessing airspace value requires careful evaluation of location, use, legalities, and market demand. It starts with identifying viable rooftop construction projects that are likely to receive broad approval, leading to an estimation of their potential value.

Despite the potential benefits, airspace development faces challenges, including high construction costs, consultant and council fees, and complex approval processes, which can deter building owners from pursuing such projects.

Residential airspace may be a relatively new concept to Australia, but in countries such as Europe and the US, the question of high-density living has long been at the forefront of residential planning.

“Airspace development is close to a $86 billion industry in just the UK,” says Livesey. “They've approved 180,000 airspace homes in and around hospitals and transportation hubs.”

He sees the opportunity in Australia to construct up to 250,000 new rooftop homes, with significant potential in New South Wales, which has approximately 90,000 strata apartments or blocks.

Residential airspace has the potential to provide a host of benefits for investors and strata property owners. The opportunity to capitalise on the current rental growth trend is the most evident, according to Silk, who highlights a 35 percent increase in residential rental growth for apartments in 2022.

“Just last year we saw them grow by 16.5 percent and this year it's expected to moderate to somewhere around 10 percent. We are seeing huge amounts of properties coming to market alongside many buyers. 2024 should be an exciting time for us with strong growth to be had in that sector.

“Other opportunities that apartment blocks can provide investors is if it is on one title,” he adds. “You can strata title the apartment block and you can apply for a residential loan as opposed to a commercial loan.

This allows you to unlock some more equity which you can then use to invest into another asset, or you could sell down the apartments individually. There are opportunities there to take a few different angles for an investor and diversify their risk.”

3D printing technology has proved to be a more affordable and efficient solution to rising house construction costs. More houses are being built using this technology in varying sizes, from simple single-build bungalows to entire housing developments. Take a look at some of the most impressive 3D-printed houses all over the world.

The Block is a reality renovation TV show that recently featured a 3D-printed pool cabana, the first 3D-printed build in the Southern Hemisphere. The structure was built in a matter of hours with a concrete mix using 30 percent recycled material.

Additive manufacturing, also recognized as 3D concrete printing, has swiftly emerged as a revolutionary construction method with a global footprint, shedding its former reputation as an exclusive and elusive technology.

Australia has been quick to embrace this innovative construction approach, positioning itself at the forefront of this technological wave.

The technology is rapidly gaining momentum across the continent, offering cost-effective, eco-friendly, and rapid solutions for constructing residential spaces. The number of 3D printed homes in Australia is on the rise, and with this increasing number of 3D printed houses,

Australia has greater accessibility to cutting-edge housing solutions than ever before. This boost of 3D printed homes in Australia marks the continent as a key player in the realm of 3D concrete printing.

In Australia, Contour3D unveiled the first 3D printed one bedroom home with certificate.

Lutyen manufactures the most advanced 3D construction printers in Australia.