Local business ‘cleans up’ at Telstra awards night

Two Sunshine Coast women who set up a cleaning products business during the pandemic have scored a Queensland 2023 Telstra Best of Business Award. See who else won.

Two Sunshine Coast women who set up a cleaning products business in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic have been named in the Queensland 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards. Pleasant State co-founders Ami Bateman and Sian Murray, started a crowd-funding campaign in July 2020 to get their business idea off the ground. Bateman came up with the idea for an eco-friendly “just add water” cleaning product during the climate change strikes at the end of 2019. “Most spray cleaning products are … full of known nasties (for the environment) but it’s one area people aren’t really thinking about,” she says.

Other Queensland winners at the gala awards on Tuesday night at the W Brisbane included Struber, which provides professional services to support infrastructure projects across government, independent, national and international organisations and Goodwill Projects, an event management firm.

1300 MEDICS, which provides medical services and risk management to public and private events across Australia also received a gong along with Abundance Global, an education, mentoring and support community for small to medium enterprise and entrepreneurs; Hillery Group, an indigenous family-owned business that operates five quarries and provide quarry products, landscaping supplies and Valenhold, a plant hire and mining services firm.

Telstra retail and regional executive Amanda Hutton says to be recognised as a state winner in the awards is an incredible achievement in itself.

“We hope this provides each business with a well-deserved moment of celebration for the amazing work they are doing in their community,” says Hutton.

The winners will compete at the national awards on March 22 where they’ll pitch their business to a panel of judges.

Pleasant State co-founders Sian Murray and Ami Bateman.

Copper fever

With copper prices on the boil it’s not surprising that Queensland-based QMines is moving quickly to bring its Mt Chalmers copper project near Rockhampton back into production. Demand for copper is surging thanks to the continued electrification of the world economy, including the roll out of electric vehicles. But a significant underinvestment in new mines in the past has several experts forecasting a pretty big deficit to come. QMines says the most recent study at Mt Chalmers confirms a potentially massive resource of copper. Mt Chalmers, about 20km east of Rockhampton, was mined for copper as long ago as the 1890s but the mine was last productive in 1982. QMines managing director Andrew Sparke says the mine could be open as early as 2025 and employ hundreds of people both in the operational and construction stages The price of copper has almost doubled from a low of $US4618 a tonne in March 2020 to now trade at nearly US$8900/t.

Additional metallurgical test work is now being undertaken to progress Mt Chalmers towards a feasibility study and the delivery of its maiden shipment. Sparke says he likes brownfield sites like Mt Chalmers because they already had proven resources and infrastructure in place.

Mount Chalmers mine pits.

Rodgers joins Rowland

Brisbane PR outfit Rowland has hired former Australian Industry Group (AiG) national chief operating officer Shane Rodgers to the newly created position of head of media and platforms and executive strategy advisor.

Rodgers is a former general manager of Queensland Newspapers and deputy editor, news editor and chief-of-staff of The Courier Mail. His other senior media roles have included Queensland editor of The Australian, national editorial director of APN Regional Media, and editor-in-chief of Quest Newspapers. Rowland chairman Geoff Rodgers says he is delighted to welcome Shane Rodgers to the firm and to tap into his knowledge, experience and insights. “This role strengthens our service offering by further integrating media and communication platforms across all of our client service offerings, with a focus on four key areas: media relations, social and digital, content delivery, and influencer marketing,” Geoff Rodgers says. And if anyone is wondering about the same surname, the two men are distant cousins with their ancestors coming from the same area of Ireland and migrating to Australia in the same period in the 1800s.