Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This pandemic crisis has really shone a light on how important local manufacturing is and how important sovereign capability is. I do acknowledge that, when the pandemic first hit and the whole world scrambled to secure their medical supplies predominantly—everything from nasal swabs to hand sanitiser to face masks—there was an urgent push to develop our PPE manufacturing capability in this country. It was a warning shot to Australians, the Australian government and Australian industry that we've lost our sovereign capability, we've lost our supply chains and we've lost the ability to properly prepare. That has come at a huge cost to Australians, to Australian taxpayers and to this government. But, rather than seeing the need for ongoing investment to ensure that we secure our supply chains now and into the future, we've seen those supply chains already starting to drop off. What I'm hearing from manufacturers across the country is that the contracts that they secured at the beginning of the pandemic have not been renewed. As the supply chains in China come on, people have gone back to their old suppliers or found new suppliers. But many overseas suppliers are unreliable, as we know.

This government has left our manufacturers high and dry. They invested in new equipment and they pivoted from what they were manufacturing to new manufacturing, but, when the first critical contract ended, there was no second contract or third contract. It's disappointing that we've had a real lack of national leadership to secure our supply chains. It's not just about supply chains for PPE. We have massive issues throughout our economy, and they're going to result in a hit to productivity and a hit to the hip pocket by inflating the costs of many things—for example, construction. We debated this week in this chamber the timber supply issues that we're having across Australia, which are impacting my electorate as well. One of the main issues that manufacturers in my part of the world raise with me is the cost of freight. It has gone through the roof. As one manufacturer said to me, there's been a complete lack of national leadership when it comes to freight, from our truck drivers who are getting COVID and taking it interstate—they were not on the priority list for immunisation; they've never been in categories 1a or 1b, yet they are responsible for getting product around this country—to the materials coming in from overseas. On this government's watch we've lost out sovereign shipping capability. Where's the leadership on that issue? We need to do a lot now to secure our supply chains so that we have a safer future, yet all we've seen from this government is spin and destruction, but no real commitment to securing manufacturing and securing our supply chains, from freight to the front door.