“A Future Made in Australia”

Dr Donald Hector AM FRSN
Principal
Grassick SSG Pty Ltd

Date and Time: Wednesday, 3 December 2025, 6.00–7.30 pm AEDT
Venue: Michael Crouch Room, Mitchell Building, State Library of NSW
Pre-meeting drinks: A cash bar will operate from 5.30 pm
Registration: Registration is required before 2.00 pm AEDT on Tuesday, 2 December
Entry: OGM: Members, $20; Non-members, $30; Students, $0
Enquiries: via email to RSNSW Events
All are welcome

Please click here to register before
2.00 pm AEDT on Tuesday, 2 December 2025

Business of the Meeting

The Agenda for the Ordinary General Meeting will be made available on the Meetings page of the website.

Summary: A Future Made in Australia is a major federal government program that establishes a policy framework called the National Interest Framework that imposes rigour on government decision-making on public investments, particularly those that need to attract large-scale private investment.  The program will see investment of $22.7 billion over the next decade, focused on two major streams:

• Net zero transformation; and
• Economic security and resilience

Net Zero Transformation – this stream will identify and support 21^st-century technologies that will enable Australia to participate in the reindustrialisation needed to achieve global greenhouse gas emissions targets.  The stream has three major areas of focus: Renewable hydrogen – utilising Australia’s abundant renewable energy resources to produce green hydrogen, particularly as an input to the manufacture of green metals such as iron, steel, alumina/aluminium.  Green metals – the established production technologies for iron, steel, alumina and aluminium require very large amounts of energy.  Worldwide, this mostly comes from highly carbon-intensive sources such as coal and natural gas.  Renewable hydrogen has a very low emissions footprint when compared with current production technologies that are mostly based on petroleum or natural gas.  Hydrogen can also be used to replace metallurgical coal to make green iron, although the technology, which appears quite simple, this very complex and has yet to be commercialised at a competitive cost.  Low-carbon liquid fuels – Australia’s large land mass and advanced farming practices require large quantities of liquid fuels, all of which are based on petroleum or natural gas.  Development of large-scale, low-carbon-intensity liquid fuels will be critical to Australia’s prosperity and contribute to the world achieving its greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Economic Resilience and Security – this stream identifies sectors that are critical to Australia’s economic resilience, vulnerable to global supply chain disruptions or require government support to attract sufficient private investment capital.

In the 2024-25 budget, five industries have been identified and aligned with the National Interest framework.  These are:

• Renewable hydrogen
• Critical minerals processing
• Green metals
• Low-carbon liquid fuels
• Clean energy manufacturing, including battery and solar panel supply chains

The ‘Future Made in Australia’ challenges are by no means trivial and must not be underestimated.  Donald Hector will explore some of these issues and what needs to happen in Australia for this substantial government investment to be successful.

Donald Hector is a chemical engineer with extensive experience in large-scale industrial processing, engineering design and the evaluation and commercialisation of new technologies.  Currently, he is a co-founder and director of Reverse Ore Corporation, a company established to commercialise patented critical minerals beneficiation technology developed at the Australian National University.  He was a co-founder and director of Gelion Technologies Pty Ltd, a start-up company that developed and commercialised novel battery technology invented at the University of Sydney.  In 2021, the company was listed as Gelion plc on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

Donald was managing director of Dow Corning Australia and the executive director responsible for the Australian/New Zealand, ASEAN and Indian subsidiaries of Dow Corning Corporation, a high-technology American multi-national specialty materials company.  He was also managing director of Asia Pacific Specialty Chemicals Ltd, an ASX-listed specialty materials and food additives company.  He is a former non-executive chairman of Coote Industrial Ltd (ASX-listed), a heavy engineering, mining equipment and defence company.  He was a non-executive director of Engenco Ltd (originally ASX-listed, recently privately owned) and was the independent non-executive chairman of SEMF (now COVA Group), a privately owned engineering consulting firm.  He has also been on the boards of several other private companies and not-for-profit organisations.  Donald has a PhD in engineering and is a Fellow and former global vice-president of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (London), is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia and of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.  He is a past President of the Royal Society of NSW and served on its Council for 14 years.

Share link:

Share link: