Tasmania Premier Paul Lennon entertained the Kingston business community at parliament house last night. It was part of the KCEC initiatives labeled as Kingston opportunities night. Guest arrived at 6:45 – 7:00 for a pre drinks chat and rub shoulders with fellow business entrepreneurs in the Kingston area.

There must have been about 60 people in attendance, representing a range of different business from travel agents to a now international engineering company that started a few years ago in their garage at Margate.

I was dubious about Paul Lennon and had formed my opinion on what I had seen of him on television and the press. In person he still looked rather red and given to a few loud drinks but I was pleasantly surprised at his speech.

Premier Lennon talked a bit about the Kingston business center and the role they are playing in local business and what a great job David Cleary was doing in providing free expert advice to Kingston Tasmania businesses.

 

Paul Lennon moved his speech on to broader initiatives affecting Tasmania, his mention of the Pulp Mill was to say that it gets too much press but will require 300 trucks loaded with scaffolding as construction starts.

He then moved on to talk about other initiatives specifically mentioning the optic fiber cable that the government has laid that connects Tasmania with the rest of the world. Because the government owns the infrastructure he believes this gives Tassie an advantage as Telstra does not hold the infrastructure monopoly in Tasmania any more.

He said that with the high speed data transfer he believed that shipping IT product outside of Tasmania became a real opportunity. He mentioned that Hitachi have for the first time stepped out side of Japan and are testing their product in Tasmania. The assured IP security which government can offer was one of the draw cards for this venture.

With increased up load speed and accessibility, Tasmania could take real advantage of this improved internet infrastructure. Even as far as creating our own Tasmanian, Hobart Smart city. The question then will be do we have the population and skill to take advantage and deliver real IT IP.