Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Like the Sorcerer's Apprentice of 1940, the Mickey Mouse Labor Party has picked up the fabled and treasured 'made in Australia' logo and waved it like a magic wand at their dog's breakfast of policies, thinking the spin of made in Australia will secure public trust. But even the best magician can't fix Labor's policy failures and the resultant economic hardships of hardworking Australians. The 'Australian made' logo represents the pride, trust and hard work of the nation's manufacturers. It is a mark of quality that resonates deeply with Australians, reflecting our commitment to valuing and supporting local businesses and communities, so much so that, in happier economic times, shoppers will pay extra per 100 grams to buy the Australian product.

The coalition is proud of the way we strengthen the Australian made logo in one of our strongest industries, food manufacturing, to compel retailers to show the percentage of Australian made food produce on supermarket shelves. It is profoundly troubling that the Labor Party, given its track record of policy failures and devastating impact on Australian businesses and communities, is exploiting this iconic phrase for political gain. This act of appropriation is a betrayal of trust. When lame duck US President Joe Biden stood in front of slogans on the wall, like 'Future Made in America', you understand where the Prime Minister took his policy narrative from.

Labor's approach to energy policy, water policy, biosecurity, taxation and industrial relations, to name a few, has created an environment of uncertainty and instability, failing productivity and plummeting business confidence. Over the past two years, we have witnessed an alarming rate of business closures: 19,000 businesses have shut their doors. This is not just a statistic. It represents the dreams and livelihoods of tens of thousands of Australians, mostly mum and dad venturers.

Recently, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's latest small business sentiment survey indicated that 57 per cent of regional businesses are looking to close their doors. With many decades in the game surviving the global financial crisis and COVID-19, business owners in my electorate say they are at breaking point. Current and imminent business closures are a direct consequence of Labor's policies, which have driven up inflation, interest rates and operating costs, making it increasingly difficult for businesses, particularly small and regional ones, to survive.

Labors penchant for a government controlled economy and for picking billionaire winners has made our economic climate hostile to enterprise, innovation, growth and opportunity. Labor's energy policies have led to skyrocketing prices, with no realistic solutions on offer—$325 spread over four quarters is not the permanent $275 energy relief promised 97 times before the election. Reliable and affordable energy solutions are essential to support Australian industries and protect jobs, yet Labor's reckless rush to renewables lacks a coherent or realistic transition plan. Instead, we have an energy eyesore, a landscape exclusively of wind turbines and solar panels, supposedly backed by Labor's labyrinth of 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines. The rush is on due to political targets, which will require seven gigawatts of wind and solar to be installed every year, a more than fivefold increase on the 1.3 gigawatts reached in the last reporting years.

Labor's labyrinth and energy eyesore has increased costs and damaged performance and confidence in our agricultural sector and food security, as transmission infrastructure is rammed through communities without care for social licence and with heartbreaking outcomes, particularly in my electorate of Mallee. Marcia McIntyre from Kanya in my electorate has firsthand experience of Labor ignoring her time and time again. The supposed community consultation doesn't count for a thing. Marcia says:

We have put in hundreds of submissions, surveys, pinned maps and been to every single drop-in session. We have been extremely clear at every stage that we will not host wind, solar, transmission, batteries…we just want to grow food and fibre. Only to end up in a tier 1 area! Our community has been completely ignored even though we genuinely and extensively engaged, wasting so much of our time.

Under Labor, 90 per cent of our 24/7 baseload power will be forced out of the system over the next 10 years and is not being replaced by Labor's renewables-only plan. Labor is switching off a reliable system without a reliable substitute. Supposedly we can rely on an unprecedented experimental mix of grid-scale batteries, pumped hydro, and hydrogen. Labor deride nuclear, gas and coal and are therefore jeopardising the very foundation of our prosperity—energy security. In fact, Treasury have confirmed that gas, blue hydrogen, carbon capture and nuclear are not included in Labor's national interest framework.

Labor's plans insult hardworking coal industry families in the Hunter region by pretending that somehow solar panel manufacturing will, firstly, be viable against heavily subsidised Chinese and American competition and, secondly, provide the same number of jobs that is currently provided by the coal industry. It will not, whereas maintaining baseload power and therefore transferable skills at Liddell certainly would.

Recently, billionaire Andrew Forrest stepped back from his ambitious green hydrogen targets, shedding some 700 jobs in the sector and revealing the fragility of conceptual green hydrogen as a so-called solution for Australians, their businesses and the economy. Labor's miscalculation of previous taxpayer money has been wasted on propping up the green dreams of billionaires like Andrew Forrest, doing little to advance our environmental goals. Yet, in this bill, Labor want to double down on corporate welfare for billionaires who are as bad at picking winners as they are. It is imperative that the government reassesses its approach and stops wasting money on unproven technologies.

To make matters worse, Labor's destruction of our future being made in Australia extends beyond energy policy. When you consider tax and industrial relations, Labor's heavy-handed tax policies have stifled entrepreneurship and innovation, placing an excessive burden on businesses already struggling with higher operational costs. The government's $22.7 billion Future Made in Australia announcement in the budget, again, makes no progress on the list of demands our manufacturers are actually making. Manufacturers need better business conditions, not more government intervention. For instance, take Steve Timmis, a producer from the successful Fossey's Gin brand in Mildura in my electorate of Mallee. Steve says:

In the last 12 month period my sector is down about 40 per cent gross revenue. Additionally, our costs rose 20 per cent. Everything has gone up, electricity, wages, super(annuation). That is a 60% difference on where we have been.

I had over 15 employees but they no longer work for me, I ensured they found other jobs before they left. It's a sad decision.

Labor's industrial relations policies have further compounded pressure on business by creating a rigid and adversarial environment that hinders productivity and flexibility. This week, the mining industry says that recent IR changes have handed the mining sector over to the unions, with BHP forced into their first union collective agreement in over a decade. According to CreditorWatch, the overall business failure rate has jumped by nearly 10 per cent over the last 12 months alone. Almost half of the nation's small businesses considered closing down in the past year, and, as I said earlier, more than half—57 per cent—were in regional Australia, where, frankly, there are very few large businesses.

The most alarming situation is the one facing Australia's $150 billion food and agriculture sector, a cornerstone of our economy and a vital part of our national identity. This industry, which spans from horticulture, viticulture, livestock, cropping, forestry and seafood production through to food manufacturing and retail sales, is in crisis. The Australian Food and Grocery Council says the profitability of the food and beverage manufacturing industries is in a downward trend, falling from $8 billion per annum in 2009-10 to $5 billion a decade later. While the sector hopes to double food manufacturing by 2030, it fears imports will see the end of high value added products made in Australia.

Labor's policies under the guise of their Future Made in Australia campaign have unfortunately and most ironically neglected the suppliers to our largest food manufacturers: our food producers. Labor's neglect has manifested in rising regulations, the unfair biosecurity levy, surging energy costs, industrial relations obligations and increased tax imposts, strangling the very lifeblood of the agriculture industry. At the Australian Global Food Forum in Brisbane, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett highlighted how government relations stifle innovation, hinder industry growth and destroy employment opportunities.

Australia has quietly become a food superpower over the past decade. Local farmers have increased their output by more than 90 per cent, as Anthony Pratt recently stated. The Australian food production industry now represents six per cent of our gross domestic product. Over the past 10 years, 1,200 food factories have been built across the nation and food exports have more than doubled, from $29 billion to $59 billion, with beef exports to China growing by 200 per cent. Mr Pratt, speaking at the same 12th annual Global Food Forum in Brisbane, emphasised: 'While tech gets all the love, food provides the jobs.' In a decade, Australia's farmers have produced 91 per cent more output. These achievements underscore the potential and resilience of our food and agriculture sector.

When you consider that the Made in Australia logo has historically been most recognisable in the textile and agriculture industries, the two make for a great contrast. According to the Australia Institute, Australians have now passed the USA as the No. 1 consumers of textiles, buying 56 clothing items per year, notably at a value of $13 on average compared to $24 in the USA and $40 in the UK. Textiles and clothing made up almost 12 per cent of our GDP in 1965 but have now been slashed sixfold to around two per cent. You have to wonder whether Labor's plan for agriculture is to head into the same decline as Australian textiles.

In stark contrast to Labor's failures, the coalition offers a comprehensive and balanced energy strategy that prioritises cheaper, cleaner and consistent power. As a start, we will not spend $13.7 billion on corporate welfare for experimental green hydrogen and critical minerals. Second, we will wind back Labor's intervention and remove regulatory roadblocks, which are suffocating the economy and stopping businesses from getting ahead. We will condense approval processes and cut back on Labor's red tape, which is killing mining, jobs and entrepreneurialism. Third, we will remove the complexity and hostility of Labor's industrial relations agenda, which is putting unreasonable burdens on business. Fourth, we will provide lower, simpler and fairer taxes for all because Australians should keep more of what they earn. Fifth, we will deliver a competition policy which gives consumers and smaller businesses a fair go, not lobbyists and big corporations. And sixth, we will ensure Australians have more affordable and reliable energy.

Our economic plan, with its tried and tested principles, will restore competitiveness and rebuild economic confidence. It is time for Labor to recognise the damage their policies have caused. Australian businesses and manufacturers don't want smoke and mirrors. The magic of effective governance lies in making decisions that benefit all Australians, and that is precisely what the coalition will deliver.

Debate interrupted.

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