Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am always happy to rise to speak on bills such as the so-called Future Made in Australia Bill 2024. I like to look at all of the bills that come through the House through a specific lens for areas in regional and rural Australia like my electorate of Cowper and the businesses and manufacturers in my electorate of Cowper. Unfortunately, as with so many bills brought into this House, the name of this bill is misleading and overly simplistic. It would have been more honest to have called this the 'Renewables Made in Australia to the Detriment of the Majority of Other Manufacturers Bill'. That would have been more apt and more simplistic. The name of the bill effectively implies that it will assist the lion share of our local manufacturers, both small and medium enterprises, in regional and rural Australia. It is just a fallacy. It's just not true. In my electorate, it is these businesses that support our local economies, that employ our population and that produce innovative and locally sourced products across a wide range of industries, from furniture to food, clothing and energy-efficient light bulbs, for example. These businesses that produce these products are so proud to do so and stand tall.

Under this intended bill, we will continue to see these small and medium businesses being crushed under the burden of rising production costs and cumbersome industrial relations challenges. These businesses are desperately balancing and rebalancing their books to keep the lights on and the doors open. I was in Macksville on the weekend. I went to the local coffee shop there. It's just a small coffee shop. The owner there told me how her electricity bill has gone up from $4,000 to $6,000 a quarter to run a small fridge, a copy machine and some lights. She told me about the butcher around the corner whose refrigeration bill has gone from $6,000 to $10,000 a quarter. We are talking about a small butcher's. He hasn't increased his costs. He's got to absorb that.

Manufacturers would have thought, reading the title of this bill: 'Thank goodness. The government actually has recognised our struggles and is actively creating avenues for us to keep up with market forces.' Well, I am sorry. You might as well switch off now, because there is nothing like that in there for you in the regions. I would like to think that in this place we would like to see more products designed and manufactured in Australia both for our own population and for the export market. I would also like to believe in this place we would like to protect our nation's sovereignty and that everyone would like to see ongoing solutions to weaknesses in our supply chains that were laid bare during the pandemic. I do believe that everyone in this place also recognises our potential as a nation when it comes to a combination of energy resource capabilities. We all want ongoing employment opportunities and we all want to see a secure economy. But, respectfully, where and how we differ is on what our nation's balance of priorities in this area should be.

I will try to break down into digestible terms what this bill does include and why we in the coalition believe it to be both ineffective and ill conceived. In fact, I will go a step further. To be truly objective, I'll use the words 'economists' and 'industry experts' lest I be accused of politicising the issue. In basic terms, this bill expands the role of Export Finance Australia and ARENA and establishes the so-called National Interest Framework that retrospectively underpins the government's Future Made in Australia policy. The accompanying omnibus bill expands Export Finance Australia's remit to fund domestic industries and nominates the Minister for Finance as an additional responsible minister. The omnibus bill also expands ARENA's functions from a pure R&D and demonstration role to support manufacturing, deployment and commercialisation. That sounds straightforward and simple, but each of those changes is fraught with danger and unintended knock-on effects. In very real terms, it demonstrate an arrogance of 'government knows best'. The people who know best are the manufacturers and the producers, the people who have been doing it for year after year, decade after decade and generation after generation. This is what we fear in the regions. We fear the government arrogance, and that sentiment strikes fear into economists and entrepreneurs alike.

The notion that the government or in this case individual ministers have their finger on the pulse of the competitive manufacturing market is a truly bizarre one. Our own Treasurer, and I'm quite surprised by this, described his time in the private sector as 'six long, long months'. It truly does give an insight into the Treasurer's thinking and experience—or lack of experience. Having been in business for 16 years on my own, and I know the member for Fisher was in business for many years, I can say that 'six long months' gives a real insight.

See this speech in context