Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In his learned contribution, the member for Chifley said out loud, 'I'm amazed that such a simple amendment could be brought through to this House 10 years after the original report was commissioned, and some six years after it was recommended.' I find it difficult to disagree with anything that the member for Chifley says, except on this point. We should not be amazed, because a government that spent so much energy in the last election campaigning against the future is going to have very little to say on the subject of innovation.

The member for Chifley pointed out the government spent 250 days without a minister responsible for innovation. It is actually worse than that. They have spent eight years in government without a policy for innovation, and the fact that this is as good as it gets is an indication that we'll see no policy on innovation into the future either. They campaigned against the future when it came to renewable energy. They campaigned against the future when it came to electric vehicles. And not only did they campaign against the future, but, when they won government, they then did their very best to ensure that they denuded our capacity to innovate. I have in mind their response to the university sector as an example of this.

Over the course of this pandemic, a smart government, a government committed to innovation, would have looked at those institutions—whose singular purpose it is to educate, to train, to skill, to research—and invested in those organisations. But what did we see? Over the period of the pandemic, we have seen 20,000 jobs—20,000 jobs!—lost from the university sector. In my region alone, if you look at all of the occupations and how they have fared over the period of the pandemic, you see a very worrying picture indeed. You would think that, during the midst of a pandemic, the things a smart country would do would be to retool, to retrain and to reinvest. But in my area alone, the one occupational grouping that saw employment go backwards, not by a small amount but by a significant amount, was education—it was the education sector. There are fewer people employed in vocational education and training, in tertiary education and in school education at this point in the pandemic than there were at the beginning of it. Over the last 18 months, we have seen a hollowing out of that institution which is going to be absolutely essential to us rebuilding, innovating and ensuring that we are going to build back better once this virus is under control. We have seen 20,000 jobs and $2 billion taken out of the university sector—that is what has been lost. If you want to see the impact of that, have a look at what is happening across enrolments and what is going to happen, particularly in the vocational education and training sector. We have a skills shortage at the moment. We had a skills shortage before the pandemic, which was exacerbated by the closure of the borders. There are a lot of businesses right now saying, 'How are we going to do our planning, particularly our workforce planning, for building back after the pandemic when businesses are able to open up again?' This Prime Minister says we need hope, but he is not giving them much in the way of hope when it comes to workforce planning. The skills aren't there and the institutions, which will be building on those skills, certainly aren't there either.

However, if you want to see an example of innovation at work, I want to reflect again on the innovation that is being demonstrated by some organisations in my community. Yes, we want to have an eye on the future and ensuring that we can improve our economy, our capacity, after we've got this pandemic under control. Community organisations and business organisations in my electorate have got their eye on the immediate challenge, and that is how we vax the Illawarra. I want to give a shout-out to the community organisations and the businesses that have got behind the campaign to vax the Illawarra by dealing with the immediate challenges. I want to give a shout-out to Vicki Tiegs from Waples Marketing Group and a shout-out to all of the partners behind the #VaxTheIllawarra campaign. They're very innovative indeed and they include Interchange Illawarra, The Cram Foundation, Housing Trust, Wests Illawarra, Port Kembla Golf Club, the Kembla Grange Racecourse, Peoplecare health cover—and there are so many others. There are ambassadors like UFC champion Alex Volkanovski, Australian Olympic swimming sensation Emma McKeon and Professor Patricia Davidson from Wollongong university. They're joining together in an innovative community driven and community led campaign to vax the Illawarra. Their target is 80 per cent and then 90 per cent, and their objective is ensuring that the Illawarra is the first region in the country to achieve that 80 per cent target. They have my 100 per cent support, and I'm calling on all people of the Illawarra to get behind this campaign, #VaxTheIllawarra. If we back our local community, we will be at the forefront of those regions that are able to build back and ensure we can get our economy opening up. We can then be out there doing the things that we need to do and that we were able to enjoy so much before this pandemic. I want to give a shout-out to that innovative campaign, #VaxTheIllawarra, and I give it my 100 per cent support.

I want to foreshadow that I'll also be moving a second reading amendment. I know the member for Griffith, who's always forward leaning in these matters, is very keen to second this amendment. The member for Chifley said in his opening remarks that the fact that it's taken us nearly 10 years to get to this very modest amendment speaks to a government without an innovation agenda. My second reading amendment will go to the point that Australia is crying out for leadership in the area of innovation, a minister who takes it seriously, a government that takes it seriously and an agenda for innovation. I singled out renewable energy and electric vehicles as two examples, but a government that has spent so much time and energy campaigning against renewable energy can hardly be the sort of government that's going to lead us through to the sort of transformation that needs to be done to our energy generation and transmission system.

Contrast that with the plan that the Albanese-led Labor opposition has put forward to the Australian people. We're getting behind a long-term renewable energy generation policy. It's energy-certain so that investors can invest in transmission and generation, rewiring our nation to ensure that the transmission system is linking up the places where the energy is being generated with the places where it's going to be used—that's absolutely critical. But batteries are also critical to this.

We know that Australia is leading the world in terms of solar take-up. One in five households has solar panels on their roof, but without battery storage households are still reliant on the grid when the sun isn't shining. We know that less than one in 60 households which have had solar installed has battery storage because the up-front costs are just so prohibitive at the moment. That's why Labor's 'power to the people' program—a $200 million investment to install over 400 community batteries across the country—is an innovation that the country needs. It will support over 100,000 households by storing energy from solar households at the community level when it's being generated during the day and it can then be drawn down at night time during peak demand periods. It's these sorts of innovations that Australia needs; not just working on the generation of renewable electricity and fixing up the transition system but ensuring that we have battery storage at the point of usage as well.

When it comes to batteries, I want to make this point: every single item—every single mineral—that goes into the production of batteries can be found here in Australia, and they're extracted at the sorts of volumes that are necessary to make them commercially viable. So we have to ask ourselves, 'If we're able to dig this stuff up, put it on ships and send it around to the rest of the world—which then produces the batteries and sends them back to Australia for us to buy at a premium—why have we not been able to build a battery production industry here in Australia?' This is a part of the energy revolution that Australia needs. A government which was committed to innovation would have put in place the sorts of industry plans and incentives which would enable us to be world leaders and innovators, not only in the mining of the minerals which are necessary for the production of batteries but by building a domestic battery program as well.

Whether it's maximising and being able to utilise the mineral benefits that we have in this country, or whether it's being able to harness the creativity and potential of the Australian people, this government is without an agenda. It has no agenda for vocational education and training and is at war with the universities—as it's at war with so many other aspects of our society. It's at war with the university sector and it has completely vacated the territory in the area of vocational education and training, withdrawing funds and capacity when they're most needed. And it's absent when it comes to developing an industry policy around battery storage, energy generation and energy transmission. These are just two examples; I could list many, many more.

With those comments in mind, I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

  (1) notes the lack of Government strategy on innovation; and

  (2) condemns the Government for its continued failure to support innovation in Australia".

That amendment has been circulated in my name and I commend that amendment to all members of the House.

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