Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

The government believes that Australia's future should include Australian manufacturing, and we believe that Australia should shape its own future. I don't think either of those propositions is particularly surprising. I think those are propositions that would be broadly supported right across the Australian community. Australia should be a place that makes things. We have been in the past; we should be in the future. Australia should be a nation that can shape the way that we proceed into the 21st century, not have a different kind of future inflicted on us, not be at the mercy of inevitable change, and not miss out on opportunities or fall behind.

It is strange that those opposite say no to all of those things. It's strange that those opposite say no to Australian manufacturing and to Australia shaping its own future. They, in essence say no to the future. That's been a consistent theme of the opposition over the last two years. Their most consistent theme has been that they say no to everything. They certainly say no to Australian manufacturing. That's not a change in direction for the coalition, those opposite. In their nine years of government, they presided over the loss of 100,000 manufacturing jobs in Australia. They dared the Australian car industry to shut up shop and leave, and it did. They say no to Australian innovation and new business opportunities and jobs, and no to the investment that we need to sustain those things as part of how we move into and through a period of change. That would be disastrous for Australia. If Australia has ceased to have the capacity to make things and to take new opportunities to shape our future in the region in which we live, that would affect everyone's prosperity. It would affect households and businesses alike. Change is inevitable. Whether it's technological change, climate change, regional change or geopolitical change, change is inevitable. If we don't have the steady resolve to manage and embrace change, we will be left behind as the world moves on. We will see other countries succeed while we miss out. We'll find ourselves less prosperous, less secure and less sustainable.

This Future Made in Australia package—the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 and the Future Made in Australia (Omnibus Amendments No. 1) Bill 2024—is something we were very clear about when we came into government. It is something that the minister and Prime Minister have worked on, and it has two sensible priorities. The first is the net zero transformation stream, and the second is the economic resilience and security stream. Each has a strong and commonsense logic. They are also obviously related.

The world is changing, as energy systems change and as we deal with the risk and threats and costs of climate change. The move to a low-carbon economy—a net zero economy—is essential for our wellbeing. Making sure that, in that part of the economic and social transition, Australia is properly supported is a vital responsibility of government. The idea that we would abandon that, the idea that we would let Australia be buffeted by the winds of change, by the choices and interests of other nations rather than take charge of that process is, frankly, ridiculous. Needless to say, our own economic resilience and security is vital, and it's interesting that the other side—the coalition that likes to beat its chest when it comes to matters of national security—seems to take no interest in the challenges of making sure that we are, in fact, securing future when it comes to energy and when it comes to a number of other parts of our lives.

We believe that Australia should control its own future and that the best way of doing that is to make sure that we step up into and take advantage of the energy transformation and the net zero transformation that countries around the world are rightly focused on—and that we have a good, hard look at what it really means to be economically resilient and to have our own sovereign and self sufficient capacity in a range of areas. The pandemic was a reminder of how important that is. It was a reminder that there are tendencies sometimes in the way that we operate economically, as part of a global market, that don't necessarily put resilience and sovereign self-sufficiency high enough up the priority list. If you move towards a just-in-time inventory approach, you will find yourselves fragile and vulnerable to supply shocks—and we're still dealing with some of those.

Australia has an enormous amount to look forward to and to benefit from in terms of being a leader when it comes to decarbonisation, renewable energy storage and energy efficiency, and as we reflect on those lessons of the pandemic and the challenging nature of our geostrategic circumstances we are compelled to make sure we shape our future, rather than having the future shape us. We're going to achieve that by focusing on areas where we do have a competitive advantage and a comparative advantage. The member for Herbert was somehow suggesting that that won't be the focus of this program and this bill and the things it enables—of course it will. But, as other countries have shown, if you think that those comparative and competitive advantages will just naturally lead to the kinds of transition that we need to see—which are complex, which need to be coordinated and which depend to some degree on investment that comes from outside Australia—if you think that those things will just happen by themselves, you are kidding yourself. I don't really know why those opposite would think that. They tried that approach for nine years, of literally taking their hands off the wheel and letting it spin round and round, and we saw what occurred. We saw that in our energy system—we literally had a decrease of one gigawatt of generation capacity during that period because there was no focus or no imperative coming from those opposite to make sure that this country had what it needed.

There's talk from those opposite about picking winners, as if they question whether our country has any winners, whether we have any advantages. You can't talk about the importance of comparative advantage and competitive advantage without at least being prepared to see that we have some. We're blessed to have the best renewable energy resources in the world. We're blessed with an incredible range of critical minerals, with innovative and entrepreneurial businesses, with talented scientists and researchers, and an energised, highly educated population that should be unleashed. That potential should be unleashed in order for us to achieve our potential, which is among other things to be a renewable energy superpower. Nobody should think other countries are taking a different approach. The great home of free market, entrepreneurialism and technological development—the United States—has not introduced the Inflation Reduction Act and a number of other measures just for fun. They've introduced those measures because they want to make sure that the United States is at the cutting edge of the energy transformation of the net zero economy, and they want to make sure that they don't see a further drift out of manufacturing in that country with the consequences that it has for their resilience and their self-sufficiency. So if the United States is looking at doing that—and, of course, many other countries, especially throughout the OECD—why would we think that the best approach is to follow what those opposite did for nine years and literally take our hands off the wheel and do nothing? We're not going to take that approach. We believe Australia deserves to shape its own future.

We know that our businesses and our workers and their representatives are ready to be part of that, but they expect leadership from the government. They expect the government to do its bit. They expect that of government and our incredibly high quality Public Service, which those opposite seem to come up to the dispatch box or stand in their seats every day to denigrate as some kind of pastime. All of those parts of what makes Australia distinctively well placed in this time of challenge should be applied to our best interests, and that's what we're going to do.

We're going to make sure our investments unlock private investment at scale. That's what has happened through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. I remember that, when I was first elected, one of the things of the then coalition government in the middle of 2016 was to once again try and get rid of the CEFC and ARENA, two things that the former Labor government established that have been enormously successful and have delivered a return to the Australian taxpayer while making sure that there is investment for the kind of change and innovation that every economy, including ours, needs.

We will achieve the change in the two streams I mentioned by applying community benefit principles. We want to promote safe and secure jobs. We want to deliver skills development and industrial capacity that is flexible and endures. The things that those opposite have put forward as their propositions for achieving a little bit of progress or momentum in these areas are almost the opposite of that. I've heard a number of speakers get up and say, 'Actually, what we need is to make sure'—they use tricky phrases like 'that wages are competitive' and 'that working conditions aren't unduly onerous or burdensome'. I think Australians see through that. They see through that kind of language. What the coalition is really saying is that they'd like to go back to their approach, which was stagnant or falling real wages and unfair working conditions. They say that that somehow is the one key dynamic element that will generate change. We don't see it that way. We're going to work towards the revitalisation of Australian manufacturing. We're going to make sure that Australia faces up to global challenges with optimism and energy and shapes them to our needs, but we're not going to do that by sacrificing the interests of the community, particularly the interests of workers.

I know that this is an approach very welcome in my community. I talked about comparative and competitive advantage. The truth is that the appetite for a future made in Australia, the energy and the entrepreneurialism exist right around our country and in businesses small, medium and large. What it asks for from people in this place is that we unlock and unleash that energy and that potential. In my electorate of Fremantle, we have one of two national shipbuilding precincts. I've got industrial precincts with an emphasis on the new energy economy, batteries, energy system innovation, the production of graphene, high-purity alumina and robotics—all of these things that Australia shouldn't keep telling itself that we can't be part of.

There are important national stories, but there can also be self-defeating stories. The idea that the era in which manufacturing did depend on relatively low-skilled labour, and quite a lot of it, has passed. We are not in that era and haven't been in that era for some time. If a country with the same population as Australia, 25-million-odd people, such as Taiwan, can go and be the leader in chip technology, why should Australia say to itself that all we can do is be a country that focuses on primary production and the earlier parts of the minerals and resources production process? We can do anything and everything. The moment that we acknowledge that—the moment that we actually make that an object of our national story—we begin to move down the path to making it real.

Those opposite, as I've said, are going to say no to this bill. That's not a surprise. I can't think that they've said yes to anything in the last two years. They say no to energy price relief, no to relief households and no to the responsible management of a budget that has delivered two surpluses after nine years in which there were eye-watering deficits as far as the eye can see, the tripling of the debt, the doubling of the debt before COVID occurred, unbelievable waste in programs like JobKeeper that blew $20 billion up against the wall on companies whose profits rose through the pandemic. There was every kind of bad governance that you could possibly imagine. Now that they're no longer sitting behind the wheel as it just spun aimlessly around, they say no to every single thing we do to try to clean up that mess, put Australia back on a sound budget position and guide Australia towards the future that Australians deserve: a high-quality future, an optimistic future, a future that does involve manufacturing, that does allow us to be a regional—in some cases, global—leader on the big challenges, on the net zero economy translation, on the energy transformation, on tackling climate change. That's what people want. That's what this government is delivering.

On the other side, it would be nice if one of these days the relentless negativity and the relentless hypocrisy made way for something else. I won't hold my breath. The Albanese Labor government is going to get on with guiding a future made in Australia.

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