Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

The contrast couldn't be clearer. This side of the House is about avoiding and learning from the mistakes of the past. That side is about repeating them. It's as clear as that. This debate is all about that. The Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 is about recognising the experiences we've had and the challenges we confront. It is about making more things here. It's about playing to our natural advantages. It's about creating secure, well-paying jobs. It is about correcting our economic course so the blunders and bluster of Liberal governments don't define our economic future.

If the pandemic taught us anything, it taught us that our economic resilience is simply not equal to the boasts of our predecessors. It showed us the danger of placing our economic wellbeing in the hands of just one or two other countries—putting all our eggs in one basket. We relied on supply chains that weren't up to the job when tested by a crisis. In the pandemic, the things we needed just weren't there when we needed them the most. Our economic resilience has been absolutely at the mercy of our anti-manufacturing agenda and we cannot have that. We cannot have that agenda define our future prospects.

The truth is that the Liberal and National parties old way of thinking has robbed us of sovereign capability. It's simplified our economy to a dig and ship mentality, and it sent our know-how offshore along with our raw materials. It disrespected science and our ideas and, worst of all, it decimated our industrial base, which generations of Australians spent their blood, sweat and tears building.

We want a stronger economy, not a weak one and not one that is vulnerable to the next global shock or to the whims of another country that wants to turn on or off supply, affecting our prospects. Strong economies possess strong manufacturing capabilities and these capabilities can be used to help respond to national challenges.

The big challenge we face is making the transition to net zero. What our Future Made in Australia legislation aims to do is to build up and mobilise Australian manufacturing to make the things that reduce emissions, using Aussie know-how, that will create a lot of secure, well-paying jobs in the process, especially in our regions. With this bill, we are charting a better and stronger direction to continue the task of rebuilding our industrial and manufacturing base and restore our manufacturing prowess.

We are supporting the quiet contributors to our economy, who for too long have been disrespected and sidelined by the Liberal and National parties. That includes our scientists and researchers, who consistently rank among the top in global ladders in fields such from medical science to robotics to quantum technologies. Our mineral processors and manufacturers can also be scaled up, but are being fed the lie that being the world's quarry should be the limit to our economic aspirations. Most of all, our workers—the welders, the riggers, the technicians, the machinists and the electricians themselves—should all have a better future and not be talked down by turning the economy simply into a services economy with no manufacturing muscle to it whatsoever.

Where others see the mathematics of subtraction, we see addition. The bill commits almost $23 billion to the idea that the right co-investment at the right time in the right area can multiply our advantages, and what advantages we have. For example, we supply half the world its lithium, but we only make one per cent of its batteries. How is it that we have some of the best battery and solar know-how in the world and yet import so many foreign products made for foreign conditions? Why, when we have the best sun and wind resources in the world, are we not capturing and storing that energy with Aussie solar panels, wind turbines and batteries? These are not conundrums that inaction and ideological laziness can answer. It takes a government—this government—committed to action, and backing that action with investment with the private sector to multiply benefits throughout the economy.

We've dedicated $400 million to our industry growth program to support emerging manufacturers through the early stages of their growth to create new industries; more than half a billion dollars for the Battery Breakthrough Initiative to kickstart energy storage manufacturer backed by Australia's first National Battery Strategy and $1.7 billion for the Future Made in Australia Innovation Fund to invest in the know-how coming out of our labs and unis that can help rebuild manufacturing. We have dedicated a billion dollars to the Solar Sunshot project that can employ potentially more workers making next-generation solar panels at New South Wales's old Liddell power station, than what were employed at the old coal-fired power station. They will use Australian technology, Australian ideas—stuff that's being done nowhere else on the planet—to produce more efficient solar panels that give us an edge in manufacturing.

There's $9 billion to develop our critical mineral supply chains, focused on processing and refining through efficient and effective production tax credits with the simple proposition in the tax credits: you make it, you get it. That's the basis on which the credits operate. There's billions in hydrogen production tax credits invested into electrolysers like those being made in Gladstone, Queensland, to scale up green hydrogen for industrial use. There's a green metals plan designed with our steelmakers to give our industrial heartlands in the Illawarra, the Hunter, Gladstone, Whyalla and Collie a sustainable future.

These and other investments we are making in our Future Made in Australia plan work together so everyone will benefit across the country from: secure, well-paid jobs for working families, especially in our regions; secure supply chains so we can confidently confront economic uncertainty; a strong industrial base of skilled workers and cutting-edge technology which will be the foundation for a strong, thriving, modern economy; and plentiful, cheap, clean power and lower emissions, positioning us as a green energy export powerhouse.

Nothing encapsulates our approach to a future made in Australia like an initiative close to my heart, the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund. This is the one that the scorched earth economic theorists who have driven the agenda in this country struggle with the most. They call it picking winners. (Quorum formed) It's called that by those opposite, whose friends have an anti-manufacturing mentality.

The coalition says it's pro manufacturing and then votes against every single thing that supports manufacturing. They drove out 100,000 manufacturing jobs in their time in government. They pushed out auto-manufacturing firms and all the jobs that went with them. They vote against the National Reconstruction Fund. They also voted against energy price relief to help manufacturers. Then they come in here and bemoan energy prices. When they had a chance to do something about it, they voted against it. The coalition doesn't have a plan on energy prices. They won't be able to stump up and deal with the challenges manufacturers face, but they want to pretend. They want to turn up with the cameras and the hi-vis gear to look like manufacturing but then do nothing but sellout manufacturing in the process. Nothing could be clearer, particularly with Queensland members of the LNP refusing to back Queenslanders building frontier technology in this country.

We are in a race in the world to build the first fault-tolerant quantum computer that can be used by industry to crack problems that current computing power can't crack. We had two Queenslanders who are recognised as global leaders step forward. There are countries way bigger than ours that are chasing this technology, and we, Australians, are in front to be able to do that. Queenslanders want to come back to Australia and build this thing that will supercharge our economy. This is in a heritage where we were one of the first countries in the world to build a digital computer, and we shipped it off and never manufactured it here, and that would have made a difference to our economy. We were approached by Intel, the maker of chips, who wanted to set up their fabrication here, and John Howard said, 'Not interested.' Wow, that decision aged well. And now, with PsiQuantum, formed by two Queenslanders, all we've had from those opposite, particularly Queensland LNP members, is criticism.

I get that you have a North Shore Sydney MP in Paul Fletcher, the member for Bradfield, criticising it. But I can't believe this line-up of Queensland LNP members who've chipped it. These are Queensland LNP members who refuse to back their own. They bag out Queenslanders who had to leave the country because, when they were in office, they didn't understand the importance of the technology. They want to come back to Australia and help our country be on the map to create high-paying jobs, build up research capability and strengthen our country's economy. It's unbelievable that the LNP from Queensland, who refused and criticised the deal to work with the Queensland government and invest in this, wouldn't. They were criticising us on the grounds of the way we worked, which is exactly the way they worked when they brought Moderna to Australia. They consulted and negotiated with Moderna while doing a call for an expression of interest in building mRNA manufacturing in this place. They criticised us, saying we backed PsiQuantum instead of local firms, and yet they chose Moderna over CSL, an Australian firm. They did that. And their investment in Silicon Quantum Computing was also delivered as a result of similar processes that delivered these decisions.

I mention this because frontier technology will mean a lot to future economic growth. It will position us in a way where we make the technology to build a stronger economy. Our Future Made in Australia plan is all about building up our capabilities, making more things here and creating good jobs. This is about avoiding the mistakes of the past. That side is about repeating them. We think we can do better.

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