Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry and Science. Manufacturers in my electorate have created secure, high-skill, high-wage jobs for decades and play an important role in underpinning the prosperity in Spence. What is the government doing to support manufacturing businesses in my electorate and what obstacles is it facing?

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

Thanks. I also want to thank—

Ask me a question. I want to thank the member for Spence for that question. The member for Spence has the great place of Elizabeth in his electorate, which had a great heritage. A lot of auto workers were employed there, who were very proud to make Australian-made cars. So I'm very grateful for that. And we know, like the Australian public knows, that manufacturing matters. It creates great, secure, well-paid, full-time employment for Australians.

As much as it's an economic imperative for this country to manufacture more, as we learnt in the pandemic, it's also important from a geopolitical point of view, because we've had so much of our production dependent on just one country, and the impact on supply chains has been huge. So we need, particularly in the key priority areas of the National Reconstruction Fund, to revitalise manufacturing, and this has been a big part of what we are trying to do across a range of areas to make sure that we change what we were left with by those opposite. We are the lowest producers of manufactured goods consumed in the OECD. So it's a big priority.

The NRF bill that we put forward has been in the chamber since December. We have offered in-depth briefings to coalition on that, yet the opposition can't help other than to oppose. It's always about opposition. And every time, on the big issues that involve Australian industry in this country, they are never there.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton will cease interjecting.

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

We had a Liberal defence minister who said you wouldn't trust Australian shipbuilders to build a canoe, a Liberal Treasurer here who dared car makers to leave. Those opposite tried to stop the national broadband network and then had to crawl back to do the right thing. They opposed the Button plan as well, superannuation—all the big calls they've continually opposed, never been there. And, when they had a chance to support manufacturers with the energy relief bill that we put through, when manufacturers needed access to better priced gas, they voted against it. They voted against Australian manufacturing continually. They have learnt nothing, they stand for nothing and they deliver nothing; they oppose everything. That is their standard.

I just want to make this point: you cannot be a party of the working class and pull the rug out from underneath the working class in the way your government did with manufacturing in this country—an absolutely shameful chapter.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before I called the Member for Mayo, I will give the call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I ask the minister to table the paper that he's reading off—in particular, so we can ascertain the quality and the Australian-made nature of the paper that he's reading off.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was the minister reading from confidential documents?

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

I absolutely was.