Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Primary Industries and Water

My congratulations to Samantha Hogg on her appointment as the new chair of Tasmanian Irrigation.

Ms Hogg has an extensive executive career with both domestic and international experience in finance, marketing and strategic projects.

She has been a Chief Financial Officer for ASX Top 20 company Transurban Limited, and has worked overseas in Canada and China. Ms Hogg is also a non-executive director for Hydro Tasmania, Tasrail and MaxiTrans Industries Limited.

With extensive experience in executive management roles in the resources and road infrastructure sectors, and also her family farm outside of Launceston, Ms Hogg will bring invaluable insights to guide Tasmanian Irrigation.

Ms Hogg replaces the inaugural chairman of Tasmania Irrigation, John Lord, who is retiring after 8 years. I sincerely thank John for his leadership of TI over this time.

John has overseen a watershed in private/public partnership infrastructure development, enabling farmers, investors and government to collaborate and reshape Tasmania’s agriculture economy.

John’s stewardship of TI has overseen an era of immense transformation for Tasmanian agriculture, with the construction of ten irrigation schemes, including the 38,500ML Midlands Water Scheme, the largest scheme ever constructed in the state.

Ms Hogg joins Tasmanian Irrigation at an exciting time when the partnership model between government and farmers is so successful it is the subject of close study interstate and overseas.

Tasmania is now one of the leading places in the world for irrigation development and other states and countries respect our expertise in these irrigation water delivery systems.

The five proposed Tranche Two irrigation schemes are being progressed with $30 million from the Tasmanian Government, which is matched by farmers, and the Federal Government’s commitment of $60 million. These include the Swan River and Southern Highlands schemes which are under already construction.

Delivering high reliability irrigation water across the state is a key part of our AgriVision 2050 plan, which aims to increase the value of our agricultural sector ten-fold by 2050.