Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to speak on the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 and the Future Made in Australia (Omnibus Amendments No. 1) Bill 2024 because I believe strongly that we should be a country that makes things again. This is about making things here and growing our economy and creating good jobs. We won't be lectured by the coalition, who drove the car industry out of Australia, with all the jobs that were lost in the supply chains and all the small businesses that went to the wall because of the coalition's refusal to support the car industry. In country towns in my electorate of Ipswich, we suffered because the coalition dared the car industry to leave. We won't be lectured by those opposite, who promised a surplus in their first year of government and every year thereafter and failed to deliver one. We're engaging in responsible budget management, delivering surpluses and making sure that we put downward pressure on inflation, and we've almost halved inflation since we came to power.

We know people are still doing it tough, and we're providing cost-of-living help. If those opposite had any integrity on this issue, they would support the cost-of-living measures that we're providing for Australians. We're getting these lectures about picking winners et cetera from those opposite. They're going to spend up to $600 billion of taxpayers' money to provide about 3.7 per cent of Australia's energy needs by 2050. Instead of providing relief now for people and investing in the cheapest, cleanest projects that we can undertake in terms of renewable energy, those opposite want to create some sort of Stalinist utopia: a nuclear energy plant controlled by the government. The party of Menzies has really fallen away. Now they're giving us lectures tonight about the fact that they're opposing legislation which is about a future made in Australia.

We think that's the case because they didn't want to support jobs. Have you seen anything said today about the fact that wages are going up above inflation as a result of the announcements that we've made today and indeed the information that has been provided? Have you seen anything? No, not at all. You get no information from those opposite about investing in Australian jobs. You get platitudes and statements that somehow we're expending $315 billion too much. But it's about indexation support for pensions and a whole range of other things, which, if they were in government, they'd be doing anyway. So the inconsistency is rife and the hypocrisy is rank from those opposite.

What we're doing with this legislation and what we're doing is investing in advanced manufacturing and making sure that we support good, well-paying jobs for people in industries that are critical. My home city of Ipswich grew up on limestone, the coalmines and railways. We now have an aerospace industry that provides so many jobs locally, with Boeing, TAE, Raytheon and a whole range of jobs in the defence industry. We've got advanced manufacturing when it comes to meat processing. There's JBS at Dinmore and Kilcoy Global Foods up in Kilcoy in the Somerset Region. There are a whole range of things and really big numbers of people working in these places. We need advanced manufacturing in places like Springfield and the like. These are opportunities. We've got so many chances here to create a new Ipswich, a new Queensland and a new Australia. That's what this legislation is all about. It's about making sure we've got an economic plan for the future. Those opposite have got nothing in this area. We've got the ingredients, the capability, the resources and the ingenuity. We've got the natural resources to produce new products and research technology. We've hit the ground running when it comes to the $22.7 billion Future Made in Australia initiative. That's real money that we put on the table here. Those opposite claim that it's some sort of Orwellian piece of legislation. It's not Orwellian in any way at all. It's real money for initiatives to assist business.

If those opposite claim that we should be assisting business or let the market run, I say to them that I was in business for 20 years before I got elected to this place and I know how to run a business. I employed people. I know how important it is to create jobs and give good wages to workers. One of the best things I ever did as an employer was tell people they had a job and give people pay rises. That's what helped us, because they were strong, they were productive, they were innovative and creative and they added to our business.

That's what we need to do in this case—create good, well-paid jobs. That's critical. We need to educate our people. Those opposite can't even support fee-free TAFE—500,000 people have taken it up in this country. We need more people in TAFE and more people at university. It's absolutely critical. We need to boost our sovereign capability and create a pipeline of well-paying jobs, especially in outer-suburban and regional electorates like mine.

We need to embed innovation, and we're seeing that. We're backing science, and I've seen that myself in my electorate. It started with our $392 million Industry Growth Program, which just delivered its first round of advice and capital support for small firms to help turn great ideas into growing businesses, supporting everything from battery making through to blueberry farming. It will grow the pipeline of investment-ready businesses for the centrepiece of a plan, which is the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, or NRF, which those opposite can't bring themselves to support, but I know that the businesses I speak to really support it.

This is co-investment. It's about value-adding to our natural strengths and comparative advantages across seven national priorities through a mix of loans, guarantees and equity injections. One local project which I'm looking at is in the Lockyer Valley. It used to be in my electorate. It's now in the electorate of Wright. It's in the Lockyer Valley food bowl, just west of my electorate. It plans to process locally grown vegetables into canned, frozen and dehydrated food, supporting hundreds of local jobs and using renewable energy to power its operations. I understand it's the only prime industry value-added project that's applied to the fund to date. It's something of which I am very proud and I've been working with the local business in relation to it.

Our government has huge ambitions for Australia to be a big player in science and technology. That's why we've released Australia's first National Quantum Strategy, to support an industry estimated to be worth $2.2 billion, directly employing 8,700 people by 2030. As part of this we've partnered with the Queensland government to invest almost $1 billion into PsiQuantum to build the world's first commercial-scale quantum computer in Brisbane in my home state. PsiQuantum will create up to 400 highly skilled local jobs, help crowdfunding and investment in local companies and help open up new digital and advanced tech supply chain opportunities. It's an exciting initiative and it's generated huge interest in South-East Queensland. Those opposite oppose it. They oppose all that opportunity. They're Neanderthals when it comes to this stuff.

Springfield City Group in my electorate are keen to work with the Albanese and Queensland governments and PsiQuantum to establish a quantum tech training centre within Springfield's knowledge precinct. This would be a focal point for local universities, TAFEs and PsiQuantum to attract and retain students and deliver local, high-skilled, well-paid jobs and economic growth in the western corridor, west of Brisbane, while supporting our defence needs, given the proximity to the RAAF base at Amberley. It's a real game changer for our region, and that's why I'm so excited about the opportunities here.

On a related note, we're also working on a national robotics strategy which will deliver and drive an industry that's already contributing $18 billion to our economy. We're looking to support safe, inclusive uptake of technologies like AI. But, to fully unlock the potential of the NRF and areas like quantum computing and AI, we need to tackle the current skill shortages and skill-up the digital tradies for the future. To that end, we've invested heavily in fee-free TAFE, but those opposite can't bring themselves to support it. That's why something like the Quantum Tech training centre is such a vital and viable enabler. I want to make sure people in the outer suburbs in my electorate get access to the tools for success in manufacturing. That's why programs like the NRF and the Industry Growth Fund exist: to support growth of local businesses that can do just that.

Capral, in my electorate, is a world-beating firm and a terrific example of this. It was great to have the Minister for Industry and Science for a tour of their factory in Bundamba last year. Capral produces aluminium for a wide range of products for local customers and for export, from window frames to truck beds. But aluminium is also important in our transition to a net zero future, as it is used in frames and found in solar panels being installed across the country. Another example, just outside of my electorate, in the electorate of Oxley—the Speaker's electorate—is the Graphene Manufacturing Group, based in Ridgelands, a really innovative firm at the forefront of our national critical minerals and Australian made battery industry. It employs more than 40 people and is experimenting in developing batteries that charge 70 times faster and have three times the battery life of lithium batteries.

On this front, the government recently launched Australia's first National Battery Strategy to harness our world-leading expertise and build a battery manufacturing industry, creating more high-skilled, high-paid jobs. The strategy outlines how Australia will drive battery innovation and scale up manufacturing of battery packs and cells and recycling to help our transition to net zero. And recently I visited the Queensland University of Technology's advanced battery facility pilot plant and the Queensland Energy Storage Technology, or QEST, hub at Banyo, in Brisbane, where the Prime Minister launched the battery strategy.

These are some exciting existing examples of industry led energy storage research and a terrific demonstration of our ability to manufacture batteries and innovate in South-East Queensland. Going forward, QUT are keen to establish an Australian battery industrialisation centre in Swanbank in my electorate of Blair, and I'm hopeful that an opportunity will be provided to participate in the National Battery Strategy and for the government to support good projects like this in my community through the Future Made in Australia initiative.

Lastly, medical science is another huge growth area in my electorate. Springfield City Group is working with a range of partners to develop the Springfield BioPark, an innovation precinct dedicated to advanced manufacturing of high-value medicines, like vaccine and blood product. This is an exciting initiative. Recently the Minister for Industry and Science and I visited Southern RNA in Springfield, a biotech start-up dedicated to mRNA manufacturing that's developing a range of life-saving vaccines and drugs. The minister and his department have been working with Southern RNA as part of our RNA blueprint so that we can develop high-skilled jobs and economic benefits for Ipswich and for all of Queensland in advanced medical manufacturing. This is a reality in the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea, and we need to do it in Australia.

This bill is absolutely critical. We had such a wasted decade under those opposite in all the areas I've talked about. They abandoned the field entirely. The Future Made in Australia legislation brings together our policy work in this space. It's an effective, practical strategy for Australia to seize this opportunity in energy transition. This is about unlocking private sector investment to build a stronger, more diversified and more resilient economy powered by renewable energy that creates secure, well-paid jobs. It embeds into law a disciplined and rigorous approach that will govern Future Made in Australia investments.

The package does a number of very important things. It's absolutely critical. This is about harnessing the talents of our people. It's about the incredible natural resources we've got, about things we have an opportunity to make here in Australia. I know this is possible because I've seen it already happening, and I've outlined some of this stuff here today. Right now, despite what those opposite think, the world is moving strongly and quickly towards renewable energy. As the sunniest, windiest continent on Earth, this is our big chance. More than anywhere on Earth, we are poised to gain new jobs, new industries and new skills, if only we capture that with imagination and innovation and create opportunities in our regions and suburbs.

We need a government that is prepared to step up and do its part, to fund apprenticeships, to attract investment and to build infrastructure—unlike those opposite—and to boost industries and back ideas. That's why a Future Made in Australia is good for this economy, it's good for our community, it's good for jobs, it's good for wages and, particularly, it's good for my local community.

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