Port Waratah is again inviting local stakeholders to share their views on its operations and activities through the Local Voices survey during March.
Local Voices is an independent survey that gives residents an opportunity to engage with Port Waratah on topics important to them, such as Port Waratah operations, environmental impact management and economic contributions.
This iteration of the survey, which is now in its sixth year, aligns with Port Waratah recently publishing its Climate Action Plan, after previous surveys identified climate change as a topic of significant interest amongst stakeholders.
One of the survey’s focus topics aims to explore attitudes towards the export of coal.
Port Waratah CEO, Hennie du Plooy said Local Voices has become an important element of Port Waratah’s engagement programme, explaining that he values feedback received from the community.
“We’re inviting the community to be part of our improvement loop,” Hennie said.
“We value your feedback, and it helps to improve the way we operate.
“We’re proud of this regular engagement model. It allows us to build strong relationships with our community and hear directly from our portside suburb neighbours.”
Local Voices is a unique community engagement programme developed within Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.
The independent survey will be delivered by Voconiq and provides Port Waratah with data every six months, highlighting perceptions at a point in time but also longer-term trends.
Co-Founder and CEO of Voconiq, Dr Kieren Moffat says one of the advantages of Local Voices is that companies can make more informed decisions and prioritise issues that matter most to their community relationships.
“There is enormous value for communities in being heard by the companies that work alongside them,” Kieran said.
“Through Local Voices, portside community members and people in the broader Newcastle area are directly influencing how Port Waratah thinks about its operations, plans for the future and invests locally.”
To emphasise the value of the survey, five dollars for every completed survey is donated to a local community organisation.
Since 2018, more than $27,700 in funding has been distributed to community groups in the Newcastle area.
IMAGE | Port Waratah workers
