Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to provide the House with an overview of a very welcome visit by the Prime Minister to my electorate a fortnight ago, despite his enormously busy schedule. It was my pleasure to show the Prime Minister through two local businesses in Albury. Both are great examples of how our government is working in the interests of all Australians from sea to sea and city to country. One of our stops was the Ettamogah Rail Hub, a privately operated freight logistics centre which can now plan for the future on the back of our government's go-ahead with the Inland Rail route from Melbourne to Brisbane. I cannot overstate just how important this project is in backing producers and manufacturers around Albury and many other parts of the region.

The other location I want to focus on today is Overall Forge, a great Australian die-forge company founded in Sydney over 130 years ago that relocated its base to Albury in the 1990s. The factory employs 48 people, creating machine parts and materials for mining, marine and power industries across the Asia-Pacific. It's fair to say that turning a state-of-the-art furnace up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, as well as operating lathes, drilling machines and vertical borers, consumes an enormous amount of power. The company called me earlier this year expressing concern over impending gas supply charges, due to rise by over $100,000 a month. Here we had a local business and exporter trading 40 per cent of its production overseas, a company which shifted its operations away from the east coast to reduce overheads, facing the dead weight of power costs absolutely beyond its control.

During the visit, we spoke to Overall's boss of operations, Glen Nagle, about the Australian government's approach to curb these price rises. There is no doubt that, without our plan to ring-fence some of the natural gas we produce here so it's locally affordable, the situation at Overall Forge would remain, in Glen's own words, 'grim'. Their gas costs are still too high right now, but we're providing a path forward for them to steady the balance sheet and plan for the future in the knowledge that the cost of manufacturing won't outweigh the cost of staying in business.

This is extremely important. When our government says it wants to put Australian families and Australian jobs first, they're not just words. It is absolutely imperative we deliver action to ensure this is the case. Many of the factors which have led to a leap in electricity and gas charges are not of the Commonwealth's doing, but they are part of our responsibility. Support for reliable, efficient and affordable renewable energy into the future is also our responsibility, but it can't be undertaken blindly, at the risk of hurting the now.

Finally, a big thankyou to the local Star Hotel and publican Ron Nairne for his superb country hospitality on the Prime Minister's last stop—because, as we all know, no trip like this is complete unless you pass the pub test.

See this speech in context