Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister representing the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business. Will the minister please outline to the House how the Morrison government is providing critical support to our regional and rural businesses who are helping to drive our recovery from the COVID-19 recession?

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. It's absolutely true that our regional communities are the power houses of our economy. When our regions are thriving, so is our nation. We see their resilience and their determination as they're dealing with the floods that they're experiencing in so many places around Australia now. We see that same resilience and determination with the way that they run and organise their businesses. And our government understands that the very best thing that we can do to drive our recovery from COVID-19 is to get the economic conditions right. That's through things like: lowering taxes, providing incentives for investment, providing the instant access write-off, providing the research and development tax incentive, boosting support for apprentices and training, cutting regulation and red tape and, importantly, investing in the infrastructure that our regions need.

So many of our successful businesses, particularly our food and beverage manufacturers, are located in regional towns right across Australia in very close proximity to our producers. I know that that's the case in the member for Groom's electorate, in the beautiful Darling Downs region, which is currently being hit hard by the floods in South-East Queensland. That region has many great food and beverage manufacturers, including Pixie Ice Cream. Pixie Ice Cream manufactures the iconic Home Ice Cream brand. They're a great local employer and a perfect example of the innovative regional businesses that help the economy grow every single day. It was at Pixie that the member for Groom and I announced the opening of the second round of our Manufacturing Modernisation Fund.

We look forward, as a government, to backing new projects that are going to boost productivity and deliver more jobs right across regional Australia. Whether it's our AusIndustry teams on the ground providing mentoring, advice and support in Broome, Bathurst, Mackay, Mallacoota, Emerald or Kangaroo Island or whether it's the new opportunities that we are providing through the $1.5 billion manufacturing strategy, so many of our programs are actually delivering on the ground in regional Australia.

We will continue to support our regions, because we understand how significant they are to the Australian economy and how essential they are to our growth, particularly post-COVID but also, importantly, for future generations to come.