BusTech Group has delivered its 100th locally built bus in Tasmania along with Tasmanian company, Elphinstone.
BusTech Group and Elphinstone’s roll out of the 100th bus for Metro Tasmania is the result of a partnershipspanning three years and creating local employment opportunities and strong ongoing economic benefits for Tasmania.
The milestone was celebrated last week at the Elphinstone Southern Prospect plant, near Wynyard, in north western Tasmania.
Deputy Mayor and Tasmania’s Minister for Advanced Manufacturing and Defence Industries, Jeremy Rockliff, congratulated the stakeholders involved for delivering the home- grown product, and announced a further $10million investment over four years in Tasmania’s advanced manufacturing and defence industries.
“We have a skilled workforce, and we want to support (small and medium sized) businesses and this is a great example of it here, where we celebrated the cutting of the cake for the 100th Metro bus,” said Minister Rockliff.
“This is a highly skilled workforce here on the North-West Coast, and we want to build capability right acrossTasmania,” Minister Rockliff said at the event.
The delivery of BusTech’s 100th bus created 30 direct advanced manufacturing jobs and over 60 indirectjobs according to the company.
BusTech Group also engaged local suppliers to ensure a significant proportion of local content was used tobuild the buses for Tasmania.
“BusTech Group’s first fully Tasmanian-built bus rolled off the production line in November 2017 and we are incredibly proud to be delivering our 100th bus for Tasmania,” said, BusTech Group executive director,Christian Reynolds.
“This project has demonstrated the strong capacity and capability of Australian manufacturing not only throughbuilding buses in Tasmania, but also by partnering with local SME’s and sourcing a local supply chain. In turn, this investment in localized manufacturing generated a number of opportunities far greater than just the local bus builds – we also integrated several suppliers into our national operations,” said Reynolds.
The $45 million project is the single biggest investment in public transport in Tasmania’s history aimed at delivering a more comfortable, accessible and environmentally friendly transport experience for Tasmanians.
