Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Goldstein for his question. I know he represents some wonderful manufacturing industries in his electorate. Indeed, if you look at the manufacturing industries in Australia, they were hit very hard and faced enormous challenges during the height of the COVID lockdowns. But one of the remarkable things, and under the stewardship of this government, is that those manufacturing industries were incredibly resilient and adaptable. Those manufacturing industries now demonstrate that employment in the manufacturing sector in Australia is almost at pre-COVID levels and is on the rise, which is a remarkable result after the challenges they faced. That also relates to the Australian government's Modern Manufacturing Strategy. That strategy, based on similar programs, is estimated to have the capacity to increase direct manufacturing jobs over the next decade by another 80,000 jobs, which, again, will build on the great work that has seen the manufacturing sector growing and thriving in Australia.

Last night's budget implemented the Morrison government's plan for manufacturing even further. It will create more jobs and secure Australia's world-leading recovery from the COVID pandemic by combining science, technology and manufacturing. In last night's budget, $387 million was dedicated to the Square Kilometre Array telescope in Western Australia. That will see Australia host the larger part of what will be the world's largest and most powerful radio telescope, which will be on the cutting-edge of scientific discovery. It will also create hundreds of local jobs in my home state of Western Australia. Last night's budget also included $116 million for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. That builds on the $238 million in last year's budget to maintain our vital sovereign nuclear medicine manufacturing capability. Having recently visited that facility, I know that, over our lives, two in every three Australians will benefit from the medicines that are manufactured at that great facility.

All of this builds on last year's budget, which allocated $1.5 billion to the Australian government's Modern Manufacturing Strategy, and all of this together has shown a remarkable result. Even after all of the challenges that the manufacturing sector has faced through COVID and during the height of the COVID lockdowns, the Ai Group's Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index shows that this is now a flourishing sector in Australia. They looked at six of the main manufacturing sectors and found that, in April, all of them were expanding. Each of those six sectors was expanding.

There were further developments in last night's budget, including a new patent box for the medical and biotech sectors, where income earned from new patents will be taxed at the concessional rate of 17 per cent, all contributing to the sector's great growth.

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