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

A little over five months ago, I stood in this place celebrating with the people of Bendigo and, in particular, our many hard workers at Bendigo Thales, because our government had awarded them a new contract of $160 million to build more Bushmasters at their facility. It was a contract that we believed in good faith would save the site and the many jobs that we have there—a lot of blue-collar, highly skilled working jobs that we have. To our disappointment, four months later—about a month ago—Thales announced that they were calling for voluntary redundancies at the site and were planning to make a further 49 people redundant. I am deeply disappointed in Thales Australia for this decision.

I know from talking to the men and women at the workplace that while they knew there would be a few jobs lost after the wind-up of the Hawkei build, they did not expect it to be 49. It's a significant chunk of their blue-collar workforce—highly skilled, highly professional workers—that we need. We need that skill and that capability here in Bendigo. I'm calling on Bendigo Thales and, in fact, Thales Australia, to do better by those workers. The expressions of interest have closed for the voluntary redundancies and my understanding from talking to the workers onsite is they've received only about half the expressions of interest they were seeking, well short of 49. We don't want to see any forced redundancies on this site.

Thales Australia is a large multinational company. They have many contracts. They've got a lot of work. They can afford to find alternative work for these workers in Bendigo. People can work at their other sites. Thales can look at upskilling the workers that they believe have no future at this site. I call on them to do better, to show respect and support for the people who've given so much to this company.

We have a proud manufacturing history in Bendigo. We built the Bushmasters and the sons of Bushmasters—Hawkeis—and we can see the difference these vehicles can make. We also have a proud defence manufacturing history across Australia and we want to see these skills retained. As a new government, we are pivoting and changing our defence manufacturing, reprioritising what we focus on. What the minister is committed to is having that skill and capability onshore in this country. I call on Bendigo Thales and Thales Australia to do the right thing by their Bendigo workers—no forced redundancies—and make sure that every worker who wants to stay at the site will be given a decent opportunity. Bendigo calls upon you to do this. We want to continue to have that strong and proud defence manufacturing capability in our town. And I call on Thales Australia to do the right thing by their workers in Bendigo.