A new home for GIA and a fresh approach to industry communications
By Joanna Cave, Chief Executive Officer
Greetings from Canberra. At last year’s Annual General Meeting, Greenlife Industry Australia (GIA) announced our intention to set up headquarters in the nation’s capital. It is the obvious home for a national organisation, and we find ourselves in the fine company of many other national peak bodies located in our new neighbourhood.
This year’s national policy agenda is packed with issues relevant to the greenlife industry and as such being proximate to federal politicians and policy makers can only offer advantages to GIA as we lobby on your behalf. We will be bringing you more news of our advocacy activities in future issues.
Communication of another kind is a major priority for GIA this year. We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded the contract for the new Nursery Industry Communications Program, tendered by Hort Innovation. The aim of this program, which is worth $1.75m over five years, is plain and simple: to disseminate information about the Nursery Levy, known to many in our industry as the ‘pot levy’, and the projects it funds. Notwithstanding the excellent foundational work achieved in this area over many years, it remains a fact that many greenlife businesses remain unclear about why they are required to pay the Nursery Levy, how it is invested and in what ways they can benefit. Our mission is to change that.
We will not be doing this work alone: we have partnered with Dentsu Creative who have long experience in agribusiness communications. For the first time, the program will be independently evaluated by Colere Group, whose role it will be to test whether or not the program is achieving its aims. Most importantly, our state-based colleagues will have a stake in the delivery of the program through their existing channels, and levy payers will be advising GIA on the impact of our messaging. We feel honoured to have been given the responsibility and we are confident that the partnerships we have formed will give the program the best prospect of success.
We would like to start by hearing from you as we shape the Nursery Industry Communications Program. Please do complete our short online survey about the Nursery Levy messaging here. Our team would greatly appreciate your responses before Friday 10 March 2023 to inform the development of this program's communications strategy.
Our excitement has been tempered somewhat by the news that two of our treasured colleagues are leaving GIA. Gabrielle Stannus has worked with GIA in various aspects of communications over a number of years. Gabby was instrumental in designing the winning proposal for the Nursery Industry Communications Program and helping us establish the foundations for its success. Her wise counsel will be sorely missed but we take comfort in knowing Gabby will remain a dear friend to GIA and the greenlife industry and she moves on to concentrate on landscape design, teaching and writing. We are very sad to also be saying goodbye to Matt Carroll who has been working with GIA for eleven years. Matt is well-known to many of you and is, quite rightly, a beloved figure in the industry. We wish him every success as he focuses on his interests in media work and teaching, and we look forward to bumping into Matt at all the key greenlife events.
Finally, I want to thank those of you who participated in last year’s survey to help us rethink and reshape this newsletter. We are committed to implementing the improvements you asked for and in coming months you will start to notice some big changes.
We wish you the best possible start to 2023. We see the year ahead as one filled with opportunity for GIA and, we hope, for you.
Regards,
Jo Cave
CEO – Greenlife Industry Australia