Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry and Science. How is the Albanese Labor government helping deliver greater job security for regional communities that make aluminium? What approaches would leave these families worse off?

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

Thanks to the member for Paterson, who is a big backer of regional manufacturing and, in particular, knows that making aluminium in the Hunter happened for decades. It's been a big deal for the region. As the member for Paterson says, the products that are made there end up everywhere. There are so many jobs in smelters across regional Australia, from Gladstone in Queensland, Tomago in New South Wales, Portland in Victoria and Bell Bay in Tasmania.

The Albanese government wants those blue-collar jobs to last for decades further, providing a secure future for blue-collar workers. We worked with industry, unions and others to come up with a pathway to make aluminium well into the future, investing $2 billion in production credits to not only help make aluminium with lower emissions but open up stronger exports in the future, because metals produced in this way could open up exports to the tune of $122 billion a year. So it's a big deal. It's an incredible opportunity. We've got the resources, people and smelters, and we've got the ability to add value across the breadth of the supply chain.

The Australian Aluminium Council says our investment is globally significant. Kellie Parker, the CEO of Rio Tinto, put it this way:

This is a belief in manufacturing, it's a belief in jobs and it's a belief in aluminium industry.

When you talk to industry, they get it. The workers get it—workers like those at Alcoa in Portland in the member for Wannon's electorate, who, remarkably, described our announcement as 'all sizzle, no sausage'. It's always about lunch with these folks! He says our investment won't work. This is the same member for Wannon who four years ago was boasting about the then Morrison government's support for Portland to transition to low-carbon electricity. So it was good then; it's not good now.

We backed it. This is the big difference. We back manufacturing because it's in the national interest. They only back it when it's in their political interests. And we have the self-styled tough guy of Australian politics, the Leader of the Opposition, who turns up and instantly bags it out. We know that this is instantly under threat by the Leader of the Opposition and the cuts that he needs to make to fund a $600 billion taxpayer funded nuclear power plant scheme. It's not on. On top of that, it's not good enough that they will not tell Australians where they will make the cuts until after the election. It's not just gutless; it lacks respect, and it cannot be backed.