Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my opening remarks, I just want to respond to a couple of things that members on the government side have said, particularly in relation to the minister. How defensive was the minister? In my opinion, she was a little bit rude towards our shadow minister: 'Come and meet for a briefing. I'll tell you what's going on. I will lecture the Labor Party about what we're doing.' The whole point of this MPI is the lack of action of the government. We don't need another lecture from the government about how important manufacturing is. We know how important manufacturing is, and we're frustrated that it is taking this government so long to actually deliver anything.

What the minister announced last year was a reannouncement of more announcements. It was: 'We're announcing a plan to get a plan. We're going to consult with industry again. We're going to consult with manufacturing again.' They've struggled to deliver the money or the support that manufacturers want. They raised expectations, including in many regional electorates, by talking about their billions of dollars, but, when local manufacturers in my electorate tried to find out what was actually available to them, they found out very little. They found out nothing. They heard, 'Oh, we're consulting with industry and we'll get back to you.'

I did ask for a meeting with the minister. I've asked on several occasions. To this date, I've still not met with the minister. Maybe she has a bit of a ranking of who's important and who's not important to meet with. But I'm sure that, if I did get that opportunity, I'd share with her the experiences and what the manufacturers in my part of the world want.

The government also seem convinced that the only important form of manufacturing—this is what they always talk about—is defence manufacturing. Now, defence manufacturing is important. We do manufacture quite a few products in the defence industry in my electorate. We manufacture the Hawkei and the Bushmaster, and we manufacture Defence uniforms. However, it's only a small percentage of our overall manufacturing industry in Australia, and manufacturers like our food manufacturers, our advanced metal manufacturers and our 3D manufacturers are continually frustrated that all this government seems to have is the defence manufacturing plan. There's no plan for food manufacturing; they just talk about getting a plan. There's no support for food manufacturers, who have helped deliver us through this economic crisis and the pandemic that we're going through.

What we should be proud of is the way in which our manufacturing in this country has survived against all odds. Our manufacturing in this country is patchwork, and the businesses and industries that we still have have survived against everything. They've survived against tough overseas economic climates and this government's failed free trade agreements, which have seen China impose new tariffs on our manufactured goods. They've survived skyrocketing energy prices; this government has done very little to deliver relief on energy prices. They've survived skills shortages and worker shortages. They've survived supply chain issues.

This is all an opportunity for us if we could just work with our manufacturing to deliver. There are thousands upon thousands of Australians employed in manufacturing, and the missed opportunity is that it could be so much more. This government is not interested in addressing the gaps that we have in our supply chain and ensuring that those products are manufactured here. One of the government speakers bragged about how great HomeBuilder was for manufacturing. Well, we have a steel shortage in this country. The problem with HomeBuilder is that a whole bunch of projects won't get started, because we have a pipeline supply issue, because we don't have enough steel being manufactured in this country to supply those builds. We don't make bricks in many places in this country anymore, yet there's no support to underpin that program. It's a patchwork problem that we have.

If this government were serious, they'd back Labor's plan about a future made in Australia and the policy that Labor released. We have a proud history of supporting manufacturing in this country, whether it be through our rail manufacturing, our food manufacturing or our advanced 3D manufacturing. This side of the House understands that it needs to be a tripartisan, three-way conversation. You need to involve the workers and their unions; you need to involve the manufacturers, the business owners and the heads of industry; and government needs to be there. We've seen it happen at a state level in Queensland, WA and Victoria. If only we could get the federal government to partner with industry and workers to deliver the same at a federal level!

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