I have spent the past 8 weeks in Australia and met with around 100 stakeholders from government, business, ambassadors and the C-suite of multiple Australian, Japanese and Korean corporates.
The message remains consistent, Japanese and Korean investors are getting cold feet. None of this will be new news to many of you reading these missives but perhaps this is the opportunity to band together as a united voice to get government to start getting the absolute basics right.

The question is, how can we get them to engage?

As many of you may know, on September 9th, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) led a delegation of 40 senior Japanese corporates to the Hunter. Thank you to NIER, Orica and MCi Carbon for their efforts in organizing the event and AuditCo for hosting the lunch. Also thank you to the presenters.

While there is little to fault in the logistical arrangements, the delegation head expressed his dismay that the NSW Government sent no senior executives to meet with the visitors. This is simply unacceptable.
After the Hunter, this delegation flew from Newcastle to Brisbane where a team of 13 Trade & Investment Queensland (TIQ) reps met the delegation. They were offered meetings with the head of the energy department, Paul Martyn, TIQ CEO Justin McGowan and TIQ STIC North Asia, Tak Adachi. It is simple engagement that is not even remotely challenging. It is their job after all. They made a LinkedIn post as to that engagement.

As the former STIC of North Asia, I put forward this compelling chart of how our rival states were engaging at a senior political or department level. We rank dead last – even behind NT, ACT, Tasmania and Victoria, which is joined at the hip with China.
The same story was across all international jurisdictions studied. NSW is conspicuous by its absence.

So, if a non-executive from Regional NSW is the best NSW can put forward to a delegation of serious Japanese senior executive investors, how can they possibly feel reassured that there is a real commitment from the government? This is not casting aspersions on our NSW Government presenter on the day. It is an indictment that I made clear for my entire tenure – senior executives do not get the cultural importance of dealing with these investors.
Sure, arguments will be made that NSW DCCEEW presented at the Australian Hydrogen Conference in Brisbane during the JETRO visit, but if we continually miss golden opportunities to engage, we will continue to lose out to those that are showing consistent commitment.

Investors are struggling with red tape, green tape and an uptick in black tape. One large Japanese trading house said his company has given up on Australia for now and is awaiting an economic downturn which may wake up our political class to the dangers their current policy settings are creating.

Perhaps it is time that the HunterNet members put an advertisement in the paper calling the government to get into country and engage in market before critical investments which carry huge ramifications to future prosperity in the Hunter are lost. This is not a dramatic overkill but a realistic picture of my two months at the coal face has told me.

The government and the departments are there to serve us, not the other way around.