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

I'm really proud to stand here in this place to talk about decarbonising industries. It's an opportunity for me to share with the chamber all of the great things that our manufacturers are doing in Bendigo.

Bendigo is a region that has a proud manufacturing history. As such, with that proud manufacturing history, our Bendigo Regional Manufacturing Group formed over 30 years ago to talk about energy and energy security. I do acknowledge that that conversation has moulded and shifted in more recent times to talk about how they can be cleaner and greener, so this is an issue that has long been on the radar of my manufacturers.

When we talk about decarbonising industries, it's important to talk about where our manufacturers are at. We have a real mix of manufacturing in the Bendigo electorate. We have food manufacturers and we have heavy metal manufacturers. We also have a number of manufacturers in building supplies. But if I can, I'll talk briefly about our heavy metal manufacturers and engineering. Now, I do acknowledge that Bendigo tends to be known for manufacturing Bushmasters. And while we're proud to manufacture the Bushmaster, which saves lives, we are home to a number of other heavy metal manufactures, including Keech Castings and Hoffman Engineering.

Hoffman Engineering are on track to hit their net zero targets. They are traditionally a manufacturing company that produces the big gears in the big machinery that is required. They are transitioning from being a supplier of this equipment to mining industries to more clean and green industries. And I did want to make this note: if we're going to have a renewable energy industry, which we absolutely need to have, we also need to have the capacity and capability to maintain that renewable energy industry. That is one thing that Hoffman can do. They can refurb, renew, the big gears, the big turbines that we have popping up all over the country. It is part of that supply chain opportunity that we have. Unfortunately, they still do rely upon gas because we don't quite yet have the hydrogen technology at the level that it needs to be to transition into manufacturing. But I know that they will welcome it when it does come.

The truth about gas in Victoria is that it sits at about two per cent of our energy make-up. At the moment it is a little bit of a necessary evil; we have no other choice. If we want Hoffman Engineering to be able to refurb our wind turbines, they need to have gas to keep their temperatures at a certain level to be able to do that, to do the welding that's required and to get the metal to the level of heat that's required. That is why our government's plan to fast-track the development of hydrogen energy is so critical, to give our manufactures another energy alternative to gas. Just to remind people, that it is about two per cent of our overall energy mix.

Another manufacturer doing amazing things when it comes to renewable energy is Australian Turntables. They are actively involved in securing and decarbonising and are on their path to net zero. One of the previous speakers talked about mining, and I want to give a shout out to Fosterville Gold Mine. They've bought electric vehicles. In fact, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, was there on the very first day that one of the diggers was going underground. However, again, this comes back to how we are transitioning the grid. Unfortunately, we don't have the energy requirement yet for the mine to go entirely electric vehicle, which is something that they're working closely with Powercor to do and with localised landholders to do in building the solar farms to generate the energy so that they can be one of our first mines in this country, a gold mine, to go net zero. They're on track to meet their target and beat their target by 2050.

Our food manufacturing sector, too, is adapting to renewable energy and going towards that decarbonised focus. Solar panels are a big part of their solution. I can remember, and this goes back to when Julia Gillard was Prime Minister, the clean energy grants. One of our particular manufacturers had the biggest solar system in the state of Victoria. Not today. But we have been early adopters of this kind of technology. We must have industries that decarbonise, and I know that they're up for it.

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