Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I've been committed to buying locally made in Parramatta for a long time, and most of my community knows that. In fact, everything I'm wearing today was made locally in Parramatta. So, when I see a motion like this before the House, it makes me a little bit angry because it is so lightweight. Of course we should buy Australian made. Of course Australians care about that. They've cared about it for a long time. They are way ahead of the government on this. They've been there for years. Now we have a motion like this, but, when you look behind what this government is actually doing for business, it's all announcement and nothing else. There is no substance to these announcements at all. Let's have a look at them.

We've had the announcement in the budget of $1.5 billion for manufacturing, but Minister Andrews finally admitted on the Insiders program on Sunday that they'll be spending only $40 million of that this financial year. Between now and the end of July $40 million of that $1.5 billion will be spent—that's all. They've said in the budget that's $79 million, so they've been pretty upfront, except they won't even meet that target.

She also said that, in terms of grants, the biggest stream would be the collaboration stream. It is $800 million, and they'll give only 10 grants for that. That's really not going to drive Australian manufacturing, particularly as now is the time they need it. When JobKeeper cuts out at the end of March and JobSeeker goes back to $40 a day in December the money that is going to be sucked out of our local economies will be phenomenal. This is what the government has to replace it.

Let's look at what else we've got. Would you trust them to spend it anyway? If you look at previous spending and the funding program for small to medium enterprise export hubs, you see that 97 per cent of the first round went to Liberal or National seats just before the election. That wasn't about supporting business; it was about supporting Liberal members of parliament to be re-elected.

Let's look further. Let's look at the $2 billion R&D tax incentives. It sounds fantastic until you realise that there's a bill before the House right now that cuts $1.8 billion. The bill says that they're going to cut $1.8 billion. I assume that they've said, 'We're going to cut $1.8 billion,' and then said, 'No, we won't. It's $2 billion more.' It's not. If you're going to cut $1.8 billion, you don't get to brag about not doing it. You don't cause the problem and then brag and pretend that you're doing something new. There's no new money there. It's simply reversing a decision to cut it.

Let's look a little bit further. The six priority manufacturing areas announced by the government were in Labor's plan for 2013. The manufacturing task force report announced in the 2013 Plan for Australian Jobs has 13 key areas, including the six the government has now announced. But the government scrapped it and for seven years they did nothing. Now they're bragging about putting it back. Again there's no substance there at all.

There's this wonderful $5 million committed over the next four years to promote Australian Made and expand its reach overseas. I have to make the point that, with fragmented supply chains—and anybody who has been paying any attention whatsoever has known about this for quite a while—this is something this government should have been doing for a long time. Back in the Hawke-Keating era, when I was in the arts industry, Austrade spent $1 million recognising that the film industry supply chains had fragmented. It went overseas and promoted the skills of our workers in Australia. That's what drove the development of the Australian film industry, not the making of films in Australia but the use of our postproduction people and our skill base in Australia, because in fragmented supply chains in the services industry you have a 24-hour work day without overtime. You make the stuff during the day in the US and then you send it to Australia and they do the next bit. They then send it to the next time zone and they do the next bit.

All around the world in the services sector that is becoming more and more common. We have legal companies in India that use Australian back-end lawyers. Fragmented supply chains have been around for years now. They're coming with manufacturing because economies of scale are being replaced by economies of scope. I was giving lectures about this in the arts sector 25 years ago. This government has finally found $5 million to do something about it. Really? This motion belongs in another century. It's absolutely in the wrong century.

Since I have time, let's talk about JobMaker. Are there 450,000 jobs? No. The Treasury Fiscal Group deputy admitted in Senate estimates this morning it's 45,000 jobs. It's not 450,000 new jobs but 45,000 new jobs. It's all spin. There's nothing in this. It's outrageous.

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