Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry and Science. How will Australian manufacturing workers help to deliver a future made in Australia, and how is the Albanese Labor government backing these workers? What views has the government rejected?

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

I thank the member for Cunningham not just for the question but for being a champion of Australian manufacturing. We know that Australians want their country to be a place that makes things. Strong economies have strong manufacturing capabilities. Our Future Made in Australia plan is about being able to mobilise Australian manufacturers to make the things that will reduce emissions and generate strong jobs along the way, from new-generation solar panels that can be made in the Hunter and electrolyser manufacturing in Gladstone through to the making and recycling of batteries in outer suburban Melbourne.

But if you want to regenerate and revitalise manufacturing, you need a committed government that will work with industry and back manufacturing workers. That's why we have set up the National Reconstruction Fund and the Industry Growth Program and are pushing for a future made in Australia. But we're also backing manufacturing workers, because, from 1 July, they will be getting a cost-of-living tax cut. We want every manufacturing worker to earn more and keep more of what they are earning. From 1 July, a manufacturing worker on $63,000 will be $1,357 better off.

We are also backing manufacturing by investing in our industrial heartlands. I visited the Illawarra last week with the member for Cunningham, where there's excitement about offshore wind development and where renewable projects will generate thousands of blue-collar jobs—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! Members on my left will cease interjecting.

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

and will generate cheaper energy for other manufacturers to do their work—

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

The Treasurer will cease interjecting.

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

Renewable energy projects, delivering cheaper energy and more jobs—that is how you deliver cost-of-living relief, not by pushing up power prices with the most expensive form of energy going.

Every time we have sought to back Australian manufacturing, the Liberals and Nationals have opposed it. When we wanted to set up the National Reconstruction Fund, the Liberals and Nationals opposed it. When we wanted to deliver energy price relief for manufacturers, the Liberals and Nationals opposed it. And, when we wanted to deliver tax cuts for manufacturing workers, the Liberals and Nationals wanted an early election to stop them. Of course, this is the mob that saw off car manufacturing in this country and, to this day, say it was absolutely the right thing to do. That's what they say. This government believes manufacturing can deliver a future made in Australia; that side only talks about manufacturing to talk it down.