Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024. There are already some remarkable success stories when it comes to being made in Australia, and I want to highlight a couple of those right in my hometown of Wagga Wagga. Indeed, Tim Rose, who is a chemical engineer with degrees in both environmental science and business and has 25 years of industrial operations experience, seven years in re-refining, is responsible for overall group performance and management of Southern Oil Refining in the Riverina Intermodal Freight and Logistics Hub at Bomen in north Wagga Wagga. He also has a plant operating at Gladstone, the Northern Oil Refinery. This has produced 140 megalitres of waste lubricating oil processed. It's about 40 per cent of Australia's total waste produced.

What they do is re-refine this waste and turn it into brand-new oil that can be used—indeed, bitumen as well. About 100 megalitres of base lubricating oil is produced and sold, which is about 40 per cent of Australian demand. Both plants are at capacity, and there's obviously then the need to expand. Forty megalitres of fuels and bitumen are produced, replacing imports. So that is a proud made-in-Australia story—$100 million in product sales. That is tremendous. As the member for McEwen comes and gives me the signed copy of Sovereign, smart, sustainable, I'll just put that where it needs to go.

What we've seen from these particular plants at Wagga Wagga and Gladstone is job creation. The Wagga Wagga plant opened in 2001 with 35 jobs, Gladstone opened in 2014 with 32 jobs, and there are another five jobs at Brisbane. And this is creating opportunities. This is turning waste into a viable, usable product that is environmentally friendly and economically productive. It is a fantastic made-in-Australia success story.

Then we have, not far away, Riverina Oils. In 2013, a state-of-the-art fully integrated oilseed crushing and refining plant was built with a crushing capacity of 200,000 tonnes of oilseed annually, certified non-GM canola. Each year, the plant at Wagga Wagga, north of the city in the industrial estate, has the potential to produce more than 80,000 tonnes of high-quality refined vegetable oil for the food industry and 110,000 tonnes of premium canola protein meal for the poultry, dairy and animal feed industry. I'm certainly very supportive of this. They're looking to increase canola storage bunker capacity at the Bomen site. The development application is being considered. It's a significant project. It's a priority project, and the New South Wales government recognises it as such. Hopefully that will proceed. Later this year, we'll get the go-ahead, the green light, for that wonderful project to enhance further the RIFL Hub. There's the special activation precinct, which is also taking advantage of Inland Rail.

Why do I mention all this? Because it's not just Wagga Wagga—and Gladstone in Central Queensland where there's that wonderful deep port harbour. It's right around this nation that we have ingenuity, entrepreneurship and activity, and much of it was based on the good policies of the former coalition government. I know that I was directly responsible in part for introducing Tim Rose to Ken O'Dowd, the then member for Flynn, which then led to the Gladstone facility opening. I'm pleased to say Ken is in the parliament tonight being applauded and lauded for his work with the Nationals as the member for Flynn for four terms. He did a great job, and Colin Boyce is continuing that great work in Flynn to make sure that it is one of our great industrial electorates in the nation.

When it comes to great industrial electorates in the nation, they need lots of power and they need lots of energy. Sadly, what we have seen from this government since May 2022, is power prices going up and power prices becoming unaffordable not just in Riverina. Mallee, Flynn, Capricornia, Parkes, New England, Cowper, Lyne—I could go on. It is so sad, to the point where this rush to achieve net zero—and you only have to look at what the Institute of Public Affairs says about this—there are many jobs at risk.

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