Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President Boyce, I congratulate you on your last day in the chair. I also compliment Senators Madigan and Xenophon for the spirit behind the Flags Amendment Bill 2014, and the need and desire they have expressed to try to encourage more Australian manufacturing, and I am a hugely optimistic person when we consider this question. Whilst they have mentioned the flag, Senator Xenophon has quite correctly widened the discussion well beyond the flag, and I intend to do so in a few moments time.

As a member of the Defence family I obviously have a very keen interest in the flag, the integrity of the flag and everything that stands behind it, as I know the vast majority of other Australians do. This morning, in considering what I would contribute to this debate, I made email contact with one of my sons, who was a combat officer in Iraq, in 2003, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal—the first lieutenant since the Vietnam War to be awarded a Distinguished Service Medal—and followed that up again with a distinguished deployment as a combat officer in Afghanistan, in 2006. Indeed, he led American, Dutch and Australian troops. He now resides in the United States. I was very interested to get his take on this. I will quote a couple of his comments. You never know of your success as parents until you actually ask them a question and get the feedback and then have the opportunity to consider the maturity of the feedback. Justin commented on the fact that our flag displays two symbols, and this, of course, is relevant to this debate. He said:

Our flag itself displays two symbols, the Southern Cross, which is widely regarded as a symbol of our region, our history, and our foreign relations. Australians, New Zealanders and others in our region use the Southern Cross for a wide variety of regional identity purposes.

He said it typifies our unity with and reliance on our friends and theirs on us. Of course, the other part of the flag is the Union Jack, and these were his comments representing the British Commonwealth:

Having begun as a British colony, we have grown as a significant Commonwealth member and as a leader in many multinational pacts, treaties and organisations. Again, this demonstrates our outward focus as an energetic, involved partner on the global scene.

He also goes on to make some comments about overseas trade, that I will come back to. I thought he might have picked up on the military heritage and the pride of fighting under our flag, but he did not. He actually focused on Australia's role in the world and Australia's role in the region, and for that I certainly was very proud.

I, like everybody else, want to see the encouragement of more Australian trade, more Australian manufacturing and more opportunities as the world changes. I know Senator Xenophon and Senator Madigan—I know Senator Xenophon more than I know Senator Madigan—and I respect them both very highly. But they, too, both understand that we are an exporting nation. We export more than 65 per cent of what we produce and our wealth depends largely on two areas. One has been the supply of cheap energy, which has attracted so much business and manufacturing and other industries to Australia. The other is the strength of our relationships with our trading partners.

I want to reflect on some examples of where this is helping, has helped and will go on helping our relationships and our Australian jobs into the future. The first is a company of which I had the pleasure of being chief executive officer from 2000 to 2007. It is a Western Australian based company. Why do I make the point? Because that company provides very high-level hardware and, particularly, software to protect the integrity of the supply chain in the fuel industry. It is a company that provided services—and still does—to organisations such as Shell, BP, Esso and Conoco Phillips in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. For better or worse—and I think it was worse—I took the company into India with the Indian government owned fuel companies and also into the Middle East, where it is still very active.

The point I want to make here is that, because of the trade relationships between us and Singapore, this relatively small Western Australian company was successful in winning a contract with the Singapore Armed Forces to provide the hardware and the software that control the supply chain for their entire fuelling from their underground tanks right through to their military vehicles. That is not a bad effort for a company that is not a Singaporean company. I make this point because it speaks to the strength of the opportunity that results from our trading relationships with other countries. We did not have a free trade agreement at that time with Singapore, but I can assure the chamber that that led to an increase in employment both here in Australia and of Australians having the opportunity to then go and work in these countries as we transferred technology that was Australian owned and Australian designed and of excellence. That is the sort of issue I want to put before the chamber today in terms of this debate over the flag and the symbolism of what goes beyond it.

The second illustration is that excellent company Cochlear which, as we know, produces implants for different medical situations associated with hearing. These days Cochlear does manufacture in Australia. It is also manufacturing, I understand, in Sweden in Scandinavia. But their products were developed in this country, providing manufacturing opportunities, providing skills, providing training and providing employment. This is the type of area which I believe Australia needs to get itself into very much more actively and strongly. With the deepest respect to the movers of the amendment bill, I say that these opportunities exist because of Australia's relationship with its trading partners around the world, and I think there is enormous opportunity into the future for that to happen even further.

A third example is another Australian company in the health related areas. That is the product ResMed, which is an Australian designed product now globally available and manufactured here. It is a product for the treatment of sleep disorders. Acting Deputy President, I do not know if you suffer those problems—I probably should consult with your spouse—but sleep apnoea, as we know, is a very dangerous condition. Why do I say 'spouse'? Because it is generally the spouses who grumble most and who drive their partners towards the sort of technology that this company develops. When I was residing in Tasmania—through you, Acting Deputy President, to Senator Urquhart—there was that terrible circumstance of a school principal, I think, who drove off the road between Launceston and Hobart back in the 1990s. I believe that particular accident did lead to some fatalities. It was then discovered that the person suffered sleep apnoea—am I not correct? I think I am, but I stand to be corrected. ResMed is the sort of technology, again, that is Australian designed and Australian developed, and it is creating employment opportunities and, more to the point, creating training opportunities for new skills development as the world evolves.

The fourth example is CSL Limited, once known as the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. As a mark of confidence in the expansion of that industry and its products and its services, only last month the new CSL Behring Biotechnology Manufacturing Facility was opened in Broadmeadows in Melbourne by the Hon. Ian Macfarlane, Minister for Industry, along with the Premier of Victoria, the Hon. Denis Napthine MP, and the Minister for Technology, the Hon. Gordon Rich-Phillips.

We all know the value of CSL in the world of vaccines, with Fluvax, for example, and the pioneering work they have done in the provision of blood products over the years. CSL provide plasma and vaccines both for human use and for use in my area of background, the veterinary world. The excellence of that company is there to see. As the CEO of CSL observed on the occasion of the opening:

This world-class facility is key to the ongoing success of our global R&D strategy and reflects our commitment to providing better treatment options for people who are managing certain bleeding disorders and other life-threatening conditions.

What pride do we in Australia have that our country is producing and has produced products and services that are so vitally important in the area of haemophilia?