Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The first question that I ask of the minister is: where is the minister? I was a little bit worried that the minister had been sent to Siberia after he dared question the Treasurer and call out the failures of a Future Made in Australia. But good news! The minister is not in Siberia. He's in Silicon Valley checking on his 'Made in Silicon Valley strategy'. He's going to visit PsiQuantum. I spoke in this chamber earlier this week about the dodgy process that led to the EOI of PsiQuantum, so I won't spend time today on that. It's good to see that the minister is in Silicon Valley, making sure that his constituents in Silicon Valley are looked after as part of their 'Made in America strategy'! That's $460 million of Australian taxpayers' money well spent!

The question today for the minister is: what is the government's plan to increase productivity? Productivity is something that this government doesn't talk about, but it is one of the key economic drivers to bring prices down and deal with the inflation challenge that we face.

When I worked in business, getting efficiencies, a unit per hour was crucial to our pricing. What businesses do is sit down and look at all their costs and put all the costs together—I've sat in these meetings. They then look at how many units they can produce per hour, and that gives them their final unit cost. They then allow for their finance and other margins. That's the price that they then pass on to the supermarket and to the others. You can bring the unit price down through productivity initiatives. You can bring prices down. You can pay your workers, you can pay Australians, more without driving inflation up.

This government does not have an agenda to drive productivity. The Treasurer and the minister for industry don't talk about productivity at all. But don't take my word for it. Just today, the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, said: 'The risk is that if productivity doesn't pick up and wages growth doesn't slow to reflect that then you'll get inflationary pressures, in the bank's view.' The RBA governor also said: 'We're interested in productivity as far as it goes for inflation. But productivity is going to be driven by government decisions.' This is the problem we have with this government. There's no agenda to drive productivity. Their Future Made in Australia policy is falling apart. The minister has already spoken out against it.

Another question that the minister needs to answer is: how much of the $15 billion for the National Reconstruction Fund has been spent since the October 2022 budget? The minister needs to answer that. I can answer it for him as well. It's a really easy answer—zero. Another question that the minister needs to answer is: how much money has been spent from the industry growth fund since it was announced? Well, luckily, I know the answer to that as well, but it would be great for the minister to confirm it. I understand that the answer to that is also zero. So, out of the two big funds that they announced with a lot of hoopla and spin, not a dollar has been spent to support manufacturers.

What manufacturers want is not a government that tries to pick winners and industries that are going to work; they actually just want the handbrake to be taken off—less regulation so they can do their work. As the minister said, and I agree with him on this, when they earn money after they've risked their capital and, in many cases, put their houses on the line, they want to be able to keep more of that money.

As the Productivity Commissioner, Danielle Wood, handpicked by the Treasurer, said: 'As a broad principle, reducing company tax will make us more internationally competitive.' What that means is more capital will naturally come into Australia, but it will come into all businesses, not those businesses deemed winners by this government—businesses like Twiggy Forrest's that are able to convince the government that they need that extra support. If it stacks up, the private capital will be there, and if it delivers a profit then there's going to be more capital coming into this country. That's why we shouldn't be picking winners. We should be creating the conditions for the Australian economy to grow and prosper. (Time expired)

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