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

My question is to the Minister for Industry and Science. How will the National Reconstruction Fund help Australia respond to national challenges, and what obstacles are there to achieving this?

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

If you want to see a champion for manufacturing, particularly in our regions, look right there—thank you very much for the question, knowing how important it is for regional communities to be able to have access to great manufacturing jobs. From our point of view, obviously we all went through a very seismic event with the pandemic, impacting on the ability to get the goods that we needed at the time we needed them most. We are determined to learn the lessons from the pandemic, address those supply chain issues, and, through the process, be able to tackle inflation and put downward pressure on interest rates.

The $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, which will be independently run, will focus on a number of priority areas that will address some of the challenges that we have. There are seven priority areas, evidence based, to help futureproof our economy following the pandemic. The priority areas themselves were informed by CSIRO work, particularly the COVID-19:recovery and resilience report, which identified opportunities for Australian businesses to leverage science and technology, to drive economic recovery and resilience, and to realise positive economic impacts, starting right now. We are looking at setting up priority areas—for instance, value-add in resources; value-add in agriculture; renewables and low-emissions technologies; medical science; transport; emerging capabilities—for example, defence—and things like quantum, AI and robotics. And there are targeted investments within there too, driving value-add in resources—for example, batteries—and being able to also see medical manufacturing emerge.

I'm asked about obstacles. Well, you know—I mean, the time we discovered that they actually had any opposition was the dummy spit trajectory through the Australian, which told us that they weren't supporting it. We listened to the shadow minister's response to the legislation. The shadow minister apparently took umbrage that I wore black tie—I bust out the black tie twice a year and I'm a Kardashian! Apparently, also, I was accused of being ambitious. Have you looked around? This is not exactly Australia's pre-eminent greenhouse for shrinking violets. There are a few ambitious people around. I tell you what we are ambitious for: Australian people, Australian manufacturing. We're ambitious that this will be a country that creates good jobs, a lot of jobs, and builds on our know-how and, particularly in regional Australia, opens up opportunity, and in remote Australia as well. (Time expired)