Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024. This is a bad bill. Like so many bills of this government, it is a smoke-and-mirrors bill that pulls at the heartstrings of Australians. What Australian wouldn't want Australia to manufacture more products onshore? No-one, I'd expect.

I can remember the retail sector I spent over half my working life in, which was the electrical appliance industry. When I started in this industry, working as a storeman at Errol Stewarts, pretty well everything was made in our great country. Westinghouse fridges were made in a factory in Orange in New South Wales, Simpson and Malleys washing machines were made in Adelaide, and Victa mowers were made in Ballarat. Kelvinator fridges, Sunbeam frypans, Chef ovens and Dishlex dishwashers were all made in Australia. You were hard pressed to find an imported product. These factories employed Australian workers and, in many cases, were among the biggest employers in these towns.

I watched with dismay as the range of products slowly diminished because the price difference between the products made here and the imported products began to widen. My experience has been that people will pay between 10 and 20 per cent extra for locally made products, but once you get past this point the patriotism wanes and the family budget takes precedence. Fair enough, especially when times are tough, like now. The impacts of this, of course, are that factories close, jobs are lost and people's lives are decimated, but the hard facts are that the market determines this and tough business decisions need to be made. After all, these are businesses, not charities. I know for a fact that many of them actually ran at a loss in their final few years, resisting the stark reality of their plight as they realised the human element and the devastating effect that laying off hundreds of workers from these factories would have.

How did this happen? Why were we no longer competitive? We always made magnificent products, as far as quality and reliability go. There were many factors, but there were four great contributors, rightly or wrongly. Firstly, red tape and compliance, which simply add to the cost of the goods being produced, accelerated as more and more of these often unnecessary measures were duplicated by two or even three levels of government. Much of this happened when various Labor governments were in power, as they increased the public service—not out of need but purely to buy votes. I have nothing against public servants. They are completely necessary. In fact, my mum was a state public servant her whole life and I have many friends who are public servants. But when you employ more than are necessary they will instil more and more red tape, as they have to justify their employment. The problem with this is that it adds to the cost of goods, which means that people need to earn more to pay for these more expensive goods, which then drives up the wages of the people in the factories making the goods. The cycle continues until it reaches a point where it's actually cheaper to bring the goods in from overseas. That's when factories close.

Whether we like it or not, we're in a global market and every country is fighting for the business to supply other countries with their goods and services. Having run a business myself, I can tell you that the greatest costs to most businesses are the cost of the building in which the business is conducted, whether you purchase or lease the property, the wages you pay and, in manufacturing, energy costs. Let's look at how we go in these areas. We have the highest minimum wage in the world, we have among the highest property costs and energy costs, and we have red tape. When investors are looking to set up large-scale manufacturing, where price is a large factor in people's purchasing decisions, we simply don't stack up. It's a tragedy. It's not that people don't want to manufacture here on a large scale; it's just that we are simply uncompetitive, so they go to a country where all these costs are lower. It's not personal; it's just a business decision. The problem is that you can't wind back the clock. You can't cut wages, because people won't be able to survive. Governments can't control property prices, but all governments can do something about red tape. Sadly, that on its own will only help a little bit. It won't be enough.

Energy is an area where government can help with the right policy. Energy expectations have changed dramatically in the last decade. Globally, most countries have made the decision to go to cleaner energy. Like most new technologies, these are initially more expensive than previous and current technologies, such as coal. In theory this should change over time, but sectors such as manufacturing demand that energy be not only clean but also reliable and affordable. This is where the Labor-Greens coalition and the Liberal-National coalition are miles apart. The Labor-Greens coalition believes that a renewables-only policy will meet these needs, but the evidence and advice from experts and observations from other countries' experiences clearly show that renewables will not supply the reliability or the affordability required by industry, particularly manufacturing, where the energy needs are enormous. I've not even touched on the energy that will be required in the future for data centres as generative AI becomes more and more commonplace. The largest data centre in the world, in Ohio, for example, uses around $850,000 in energy per day as well as an enormous amount of water. This will only continue to grow.

That is why 19 of the 20 countries in the OECD have nuclear energy in their mix. Over the average 80-year lifespan of the reactor, it is less expensive than renewables such as wind and solar, where the infrastructure of panels and wind towers needs to be replaced on average every 20 years. That's four times during the life of a nuclear power plant. Factoring in what the replacement costs of these panels and towers will be in 2040 and 2060 makes it a much more expensive form of energy. The difference in the waste disposal of renewables compared to nuclear is incalculable. Comparing the amount of landfill that would be needed for solar panels and wind towers with the amount needed for nuclear waste over that 80-year period would be like comparing the size of Tasmania with the entire surface area of the sun. The difference in land that will need to be cleared to put in a solar or wind farm compared to a nuclear power station is also stark. A nuclear power plant will need about four hectares and, under the coalition's plan, will generally go where existing coal-fired power stations are, so it will need little to no land clearing. In comparison a solar farm that can generate the same amount of power as one these power stations will need around 4,000 hectares of land cleared. That's not to mention the long-term damage it will cause to the land it sits on.

Labor's renewables-only policy will require batteries to store energy when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. Data shows us that the very unstable element, lithium, that exists in batteries has a very high propensity to catch fire. Ask any firey how hard they are to put out. I know it. In a previous business that I had, we used to sell little golf buggies with lithium batteries. At one o'clock one afternoon there was the smell of smoke, and a buggy that had never even been taken out of the box was suddenly on fire, sitting on six other boxes containing the same lithium batteries. A fire extinguisher was produced, and we tried to put it out to no avail. The fire department was called, and they went, 'Oh my god—a lithium battery!' and dragged it out into the driveway. In about another 10 minutes, they were able to put it out.

In Brendale, in the Leader of the Opposition's electorate in Moreton Bay shire, where we both are, there is a battery facility that's about to put in 240 batteries. Each one is the size of a 20-foot shipping container. This is not out in the bush; this is in residential north-side Brisbane. The shipping companies have been told, as part of the tender to take in these goods, that they have to make sure that they are stored with either air conditioning or water cooling. This is before they're even plugged in and used. That is how volatile this equipment is. So, when people talk about the safety issues of nuclear, I would say that, compared to the safety issues of lithium batteries, they would be insignificant. So, again, nuclear has it over in that element as well.

All this bill does is subsidise large and, in the main, renewables companies which are driving this. They can't stand on their own two feet without government subsidy, because they know it won't stack up. It's no different to the energy now, where the state government is using taxpayers' money in Queensland to subsidise energy costs by $1,000 and the federal government is subsidising costs by $300. It's because it doesn't stack up without the subsidy. The fact is that raw energy costs have gone up under this government. You can't use taxpayers' money to subsidise taxpayers' bills. It doesn't make any sense. They break your leg and then pay for the plaster and the doctor and expect thanks for it. It doesn't work. We need to incentivise smaller businesses. We can compete in smaller manufacturing, even though those fast-moving goods manufacturers, where there's lots of stuff on a scale, can't compete with these other countries that have low energy costs, lower wages, and all of those things I outlined. At the end of the day, the smaller innovative companies are great companies, such as NLT Technologies in Caboolture, in my electorate of Longman, that employ around 20 to 30 people. They've managed to come up with a wi-fi system that works underground in coalmines.

There's a small manufacturer down in Narangba that makes mower parts and mower blades. They bought an old stamping machine from the Mitsubishi car factory, which, unfortunately, because of the reasons I outlined, became uncompetitive, so they stopped making cars in this country. They were able to buy that stamping machine, and, to their credit, they're making it work. These people are in a market where they don't have to compete against these big guys in China. That's what we should be looking at. We want manufacturing in this country, and we should focus on these smaller manufacturers. One of the companies that makes the mower blades would actually like to make a mower here. That would be awesome. I can remember selling Victor mowers. They were proudly made here. He said the problem is, 'I've done the maths, and if I'm going to manufacture the mower here to compete with the Chinese import that Bunnings sells for $300, it would have to be retail at $600.' People won't pay double the price because it's got an 'Australian made' tag on it. We could help these people out. We need some sensible industrial relations reforms that take into consideration the conditions and the pay of workers and the realistic needs of employers. We need to make sure that we cut back on this red tape, particularly red tape where it is duplicated. We need to make sure that these manufacturers have certainty, reliability and affordability in terms of their energy needs. That is absolutely what's needed.

There's also a matter of trust. Australians I speak to, particularly business owners, simply don't trust this government. They don't trust them. They believe that their priorities have been wrong. They spent their first 18 months in government completely ignoring the Australian people, the cost of living and interest rates rising. They focused completely on something that was driven by the Prime Minister's personal agenda in the Voice to Parliament. They saw $500 million completely wasted on something that would never get up, and they're frustrated. Like so many bills introduced here, the headline is appealing. It's exciting. It gets people's blood flowing. During COVID, we saw an enormous amount of patriotism come back, and, because of necessity, we had to see some local manufacturing happen. We couldn't get things in from overseas because of COVID. People got excited about Australian made again, and I loved it. But once all that wore off, the stark reality of high energy costs, high wage costs and the industrial relations laws hamstringing businesses and red tape is that all that stuff has come back to roost, making it simply impossible for these companies to do it on a large scale. So we're back to reality after that short COVID period, and that has all hit home.

Like these bills, the headline is so good, but when you go into the detail, that's where the disappointment begins. The headline promises so much, only to be let down by the detail. I hope there can be some common sense put into this. I really hope that the Labor government, for Australia's sake, will go back and take on some of the ideas of the coalition. Let's work together to make sure that we can get it there. I'll tell you now that this bill and the way that it's currently set up and operating will not achieve a future made in Australia. For me, that's very, very sad.

(Quorum formed)

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