Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

I've said time and time again in this place that I live in the best region in the best state in the best country in the world. I tell my constituents that every day.

Tasmanians are innovators and in the North West, the West Coast and King Island, it's full of them. It's that island ingenuity. We manufacture high quality, world-leading products in my electorate. We are the home of Elphinstone, Delta Hydraulics, Penguin Composites, Jayben, Direct Edge and many others, which are all playing a part in transforming our region into a manufacturing centre of excellence. So when this government speaks of a future made in Australia, I'm excited because in my mind I translate that into a future made in Tasmania for me and my electorate. I know there's an enormous opportunity for our state to continue to leverage off our natural advantages and our world-leading business owners.

But there's a vast difference between my vision for our future and the ongoing prosperity for the manufacturers and this bill. This is another typical Labor bill. It's about the silky smooth sales pitch rather than fixing the real barriers that are stifling our workplaces and stifling industry. Not surprisingly, it's a Labor bill that is centred around the notion that governments know best. It's interventionist. It has the Prime Minister and his team trying to be everything to everyone, having a bit each way. There's a tag for you.

It's a bill where there's an attempt to solve a raft of problems of their own making, but all they are doing is creating multiple problems in a misguided effort to find a solution. There's nothing more dangerous for business and our future than a government who think they know best. A government who refuse to listen to industry experts and leading economists who are all telling them that this bill is fundamentally flawed. Of course, we all want more things made in Australia. The global financial crisis, the epidemic and ongoing geopolitical tensions across the world have reminded us of our vulnerability.

But the world is changing rapidly, and in this readjustment Australia must secure its position. We must act to remain globally competitive in industries where we have a comparative advantage. We must be clear eyed about what the government's role and what industry's role are in achieving this. That's what's at the heart of this bill and that's what this debate is about.

What exactly is the Albanese government trying to achieve? It's trying to get the fundamentals of the economy right, as we would expect, and rightly so. For example, this government is trying to play a role in providing affordable and reliable energy. But ask yourself, have they kept their election commitment to businesses and industry to make energy cheaper under this government? Of course they haven't. The facts back this in. Local manufacturers are suffering under this government's energy crisis. Labor promised a reduction in energy costs for businesses but they've only seen and delivered an increase.

So what is this bill delivering? On the face of it, it appears to be a return to the interventionist and protectionist Labor of old. I've said more than once in this place that governments do not create wealth. It's our thriving business sector that creates wealth. When it comes to energy costs, my electorate is also an agricultural based electorate and energy plays a big part in that as we export products all over the world and our domestic market.

We forget sometimes in this place that energy plays a part and comes in different forms. It's not just energy that comes out of the power socket. Electricity is obviously the first thing we think of, but diesel and fuel are forms of energy, and fertiliser is a type of energy.

We import a lot of canola into Tasmania for our dairy industry. We are the epicentre of the dairy industry in the great state of Tasmania. There is a dairy in my electorate that milks 23,000 milking cows twice a day, so they import a lot of canola and a lot of protein into the state of Tasmania. Well, we measure that in metabolic energy units, or ME, so that is effectively energy. That plays a part. Obviously that energy is carted on ships and on trucks, and that uses diesel and fossil fuels to transport that product to market and to farm, so that is affected. Everywhere that touches, energy is involved in some form or another. SeaRoad, operating out of the Devonport port in my electorate, operates a 214-metre long vessel which transports containers and freight from the state of Tasmania to Melbourne. That vessel has a combination of a compression-ignition internal combustion engine and a diesel engine which has LNG injection on board to make that more effective and more friendly to the environment. So again energy is used. There are farmers in my electorate—and I know this from my own operation—that have used diesel pumps for their irrigation over the last couple of years because it's effectively cheaper than running it from electricity, and that's not good enough. So energy plays a big part.

It's government's responsibility to put into place the policy settings that are necessary to achieve the step away from this energy dependence and let businesses do what they know best. It's not government's job to pick winners. It's not government's job to invest taxpayer money or to prop up uncompetitive businesses in the hope that sometime in the future they might be able to hold their own on the international commodity market. This approach, government providing industry subsidies to business, has failed right around the world time and time again. But intervention and providing taxpayer subsidies in an attempt to make a company internationally competitive is Labor's approach to this bill, and Labor has been warned by industry and by leading economists that this approach will fail.

Let's take an example. Let's take Labor's push for local manufacturing of solar panels. Under this plan, we would pour taxpayers' money into businesses to get them up off the ground. We would hold their hand and prop them up for an unspecified time with taxpayers' money, but at some stage we have to let them go on the international commodity market, where they are competing with the likes of China. China produces currently more than 90 per cent of the global supply of solar panels. Anyone who thinks that's a small thing to ask—that any Aussie manufacturer is going to be able to compete with the economies of scale, the cheap labour and the Chinese government backed solar panels industry and come out on top—is delusional. And what next? When the industry fails, as it inevitably will do, do we go back to the government, cap in hand, and ask for some more money? What happens to the workers? What happens to the local communities? What happens to their suppliers? And, when it comes to households buying solar panels, do we de-incentivise imported solar panels and force consumers to buy Australian-made? How do we do that, and are we going to put a tariff on imported goods? Where does it stop? Where does the intervention stop?

Productivity Commission Chair Danielle Wood is just one of the many who are voicing concerns about the high risks associated with this proposal around this bill. She warns against investing in industries like solar panels that don't have a competitive advantage. She says:

It diverts resources, that's workers and capital, away from other parts of the economy where they might generate high value uses.

That's important because individual sectors within our economy don't work in isolation. If you give it to one, you're taking it from another. If you give a leg-up to one industry, you are stifling another. It is a finely tuned ecosystem, easily disrupted, and the greatest disruptor of all seems to be government. Ms Wood went on to say that this bill risks entrenching subsidy-dependent industries and would come at a cost to the Australian economy.

Unfortunately, this is a well-worn path for this government. This underperforming government is under pressure to deliver something in this term. Their popularity is waning, and they have no capacity to solve the challenges before them. So what do they do? They're going to cash-splash. It's a well-worn path taken by Labor MPs in a similar situation. We'll never forget the tragedy of the Rudd government's $2.8 billion home insulation scheme—a scheme that resulted in a royal commission where government was held to account for a policy that was made on the run and, as a result, was not properly designed or implemented. And then there were the rorts and the waste of the $3½ billion Building the Education Revolution fund. That's where this policy is heading. This government is running out of time, and in response it has put this bill forward trying to be all things to all people. It's policy on the run, and we all know that will end up down south.

This is what the Prime Minister has said about the Future Made in Australia Bill:

The Future Made in Australia plan is about attracting and enabling investment, making Australia a renewable energy superpower, value-adding to our resources and strengthening economic security, backing Australian ideas and investing in the people, communities and services that will drive our national success.

And yet, over the past two years, day after day, year after year, the Prime Minister and his government have stood by and done nothing as the rising cost of doing business is sending businesses to the wall. They're closing their doors.

This government is saying that it wants to pick winners while watching businesses that have thrived for decades go broke. They've been so focused on this unnecessary bill that they have actually turned their backs on the sector that they say that they are trying to support. It doesn't make sense. Energy costs, taxation, IR legislation, red tape, green tape, insurance, transport—the list goes on. Around 19,000 businesses have entered insolvency since Labor came to office—19,000. It's the highest on record since ASIC began collecting data. It's beyond belief that this government is talking about a future made in Australia when right now, today, at this minute, they're sending businesses to the wall. It doesn't make sense. This is a government whose ego is so big that it has stopped listening to communities and the business sector.

Our region is the engine room of our state's economy. When I was elected in 2019, I pledged to fight every day to ensure that we received our fair share, and the former government listened. During my first term, Braddon received the second-highest investment of any electorate in Australia. That's something I'll never shy away from. It's only right. It's right for my region and my businesses. We invested in key infrastructure projects. We backed our local manufacturers. We gave them business confidence. We gave them an over-the-horizon strategic vision. This investment continues to be rolled out, and it's building the infrastructure of the future. That's what we need. This, in turn, is supporting small businesses, who employ thousands of locals in my region. It's keeping money in our local communities, and it's keeping money in local families' pockets, and they spend it in local shops.

But under this Albanese government principle, this bill, the pipeline of projects has dried up. Labor has no strategic vision for our future. The best that they can come up with, this bill, is an on-the-run move to pit one industry against another. We'll throw a splash of environmental considerations in on that, which will only exacerbate the damage. This is a government that is desperately seeking solutions. The foundation is all based on the wrong priorities.

And this is what has resulted in this bad bill. It is a bill that will only insert government. It is a bill that will result in billions of dollars of waste when it comes to taxpayers' money. This is a bill that has failed to gain any support from mainstream economists and industry itself. Australians want and deserve better. Only the coalition understands our national strengths. We are looking to build a nation which is a mining and manufacturing and agricultural powerhouse and a leader in technology and innovation. As a consequence, I cannot support this bill.

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