Australian Small Business Ombudsman Bruce Billson has urged the Federal Government to reactivate temporary insolvency protections after a sharp increase in businesses entering administration in the last week of June.

The Federal Government is increasing the COVID disaster payment to $750 for workers who have lost more than 20 hours a week of work, as NSW extended its lockdown by one month. The expanded NSW COVID-19 Business Support Payment will now cover 400,000 businesses employing 3.3 million workers.

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Agfa Graphics has appointed Phillip Burns as the Sales Manager for its Australian Inkjet business.  He will be taking on the role of championing the Agfa Large Format digital printers across Australia, building on the growth of its inkjet presence and informing the industry of new digital platforms.

Xerox posted $US1.79 billion of revenue in 2021 second-quarter results, up 22.4 percent year-over-year, but said recovery may be “uneven and affected by the emergence of new variants of the COVID-19 virus.” The board declared a quarterly dividend of 25c per share.

Roland DG Australia has launched Roland DG Connect, an app that gives users a detailed understanding of their overall print operation to keep devices running at optimum performance. The new app is available for use with all TrueVIS series printers and printer cutters, and is free to new and existing Roland DG owners.

Mitsubishi JetScript papers may not be well known under that name here but they find their way into the market under several other brand names. The mill, based in Germany, is renowned for coating very high quality stocks - and they are going up 20% across the board from September. The size of this increase is staggering - and probably indicative of more manufacturers doing similar adjustments. Mitsubishi had already increased inkjet paper prices by 5% in March 2021

It was a site begging for a billboard - Pacific Highway at Gordon where a pedestrian footbridge has linked two sides of the Gordon Centre for years, with the highway thundering on below. Now oOh! media has bagged it and it looks great, both day and night. In this instance, digital makes complete sense as ad changes can be made remotely, without blocking the busy arterial road out of Sydney to the north.

ColourChiefs, Kuhn Corp and Sunprint were among the big winners when the Queensland print industry came together at the Tattersalls Club in Brisbane to celebrate the state PICAs.

Roland DG Corporation has begun construction on an expansion of its manufacturing facility in Thailand which will increase its wide-format inkjet printer production capacity by about 40% to 17,000 units per year.

Skills training in signage will be eligible for funding under the NSW Department of Education’s new Trade Pathways Program designed to boost the number of skilled workers in the construction industry. 

“It feels incredible to finally be less than three months away from opening the doors to a live FESPA event.”  Exhibitors and visitors are getting ready to conduct face-to-face business at the FESPA Global Print Expo 2021 and European Sign Expo 2021 (12-15 October, RAI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands), "in light of the progressive relaxation of COVID restrictions and re-opening of hospitality and live events." Mask wearing and distancing will be recommended.

Soar Print managing director Fred Soar is the new president of national print industry association PrintNZ, taking over from Tony Sayle. Two new board members have also been appointed: Jill Cowling of Blue Star and Morgan John of Spicers.

Dynamic commercial, digital and label printer, Melbourne's Southern Impact has acquired wide format, signage, vehicle wrap and POS business Peak Digital.  Andrew and Mel Robertson's Peak Digital  team will start working collaboratively with Southern Impact from Monday 2nd August.

Seiko Epson Corporation is adding two new printheads to its PrecisionCore line-up that will deliver high print quality at high speed for applications such as signage.

Following the announcement postponing PacPrint 2021, with Visual Imact and the Label & Packaging Expo, ASGA and FESPA Australia confirm that the ASGA & FESPA Australia HP Awards for Excellence Presentation will also be rescheduled.