Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Labor has also welcomed the fact that the government has finally, at long last, put forward a plan for Australian industry and manufacturing. We've seen seven years of neglect under this government, where it has not put forward any serious commitment to Australia's manufacturing sector, and this is very sadly an agenda that the government has recycled.

Australia has always been a country that makes things. We're very good at it. People see the Australian Made logo here and overseas, and they know that what we've made is of good quality. But the coalition neglected Australian manufacturing and, in fact, worse than that, goaded General Motors Holden into leaving Australia. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how important Australian manufacturing is to us. When the need for personal protective equipment and hand sanitiser increased, our local manufacturers did indeed answer the call. Shifting their production, they started producing materials that we needed here. I want to say that we are all, as Australians, incredibly grateful to all those manufacturers that have kept us safe. But this is no thanks to the Australian government.

When I asked the department of industry in estimates what they had done in this space, they said they'd put the call out to Australian manufacturers to see what they could do. And, yes, indeed, Australian manufacturers responded. So what did the department of industry then do? They passed that information on to the Department of Health, which is all well and good. However, the Department of Health is there to make sure that we've got a supply, that it meets the quality standards and that we've got enough supply, but actually it was completely agnostic, as far as I can tell, as to whether any of the products that were acquired by Health were actually manufactured in Australia. So for all that talk from the Commonwealth government, from the Morrison government, about their support for Australian manufacturing and those who've dug in deep to get supply happening in the context of COVID, when I asked the department of industry, 'Where's the record of what Australian manufacturers and suppliers have done?' they said, 'Oh. You would have to ask the Department of Health, but generally their tenders are for the product itself, and I wouldn't expect they would necessarily know whether the product was made in Australia or not.'

It has taken a global pandemic, not just on this front but on many other fronts, to expose the failures of the government with respect to supporting Australian manufacturing. When the government announced their manufacturing plan, I wasn't and Labor wasn't surprised to see the six areas identified in the plan as being priorities. They are priorities, and indeed they were priorities when Labor put them in our plan, A Plan for Australian Jobs, back in 2013. These were certainly priorities and remain so seven years later when the government has finally announced them as their priorities. So, because of this neglect, it's not so much a plan as it is a reversal of bad policy decisions, the biggest of which, of course, is the research and development tax incentive, which was a backflip of astronomical proportions. It'd be gold at the Olympics. This government would have you think that it's a $2 billion investment in research and development and not, as we know it to be, a reversal of a proposed $1.8 billion cut. It's not new money. It's not new investment. Under this government, Australia's R&D investment has fallen below two per cent of gross domestic product. All of this is at the same time as universities, which do much of this research that also supports our manufacturing sector, have had much of their research budgets massacred by the impact of the loss of international students here on Australian campuses.

It is not just the tax incentive that the government's backflipped on; we have a government that got rid of the instant asset write-off and then brought it back. They got rid of the loss carry-back and then they bought it back. They got rid of Commercialisation Australia, and now again the government talks about how important it is to commercialise Australian research and products. So it's no surprise to me or anyone else in the Labor Party that they would scrap Labor's manufacturing plan and bring it back some seven years later.

This government's great at its big policy announcements, big headlines and great photo opportunities, but they lack the follow-up. They really do lack the follow-up. All of these are areas of priority within a manufacturing plan that should have been sustained, maintained and not put forward as some new invention now.

My good colleague Clare O'Neil MP said in the other place, 'They are all froth and no beer.' They have spruiked their $1.5 billion plan for manufacturing for all the cameras, grabbed headlines and photo opportunities but the details—it's all in the details—show only $40 million of the $1.5 billion plan is being spent this financial year. That's less than three per cent of funding slated in the budget for this program for Australian manufacturing being spent this financial year. That is at a time when we know that many Australian manufacturers have experienced a crisis in demand, an impact on employment supply or, in some cases, a desperate need for support to scale up because of an increase in demand as a result of the changes in trade dynamics. It is absolutely woeful that this is the state of the government's agenda. Our economy needs stimulus now, and our government should be providing it, not just the macrostimulus of JobKeeper, JobMaker, asset write-offs et cetera. This manufacturing policy is completely devoid of any commitment to the parts of our manufacturing economy that should be supported with bespoke policies in different ways.

Labor have always supported the Australian manufacturing industry. We consider manufacturing in this country to be a critical part of our economy and the creation of well-paid jobs. That has always been our commitment and our vision. It's not something to just trot out when you need a headline for economic recovery; it should be an embedded part of an economic agenda always. We want to keep presenting strong policies that would see well-paid, highly skilled manufacturing jobs right around our country—in our metro areas and in our regions.

One really good opportunity that this government isn't delivering on is to get behind Australia's national rail sector. There are billions of dollars slated for future public transport, which the Commonwealth has finally got around to changing its agenda on and is willing to support, but why not leverage off procurement to support that? Billions of dollars are being invested in public transport projects: Western Sydney rail, Melbourne metro, Perth METRONET and many more. Eleven thousand new railcars will be required in three decades. We want to see rolling stock manufactured here in Australia. It would see some 659 full-time jobs, boosting our GDP by up to $5 billion.

These are the kinds of plans that we need for Australian jobs and Australian manufacturing: plans for jobs in places like Maryborough, Newcastle, Dandenong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Perth; plans to stop job losses; plans for better cooperation and coordination between the states to create a strong and stable industry for the future; plans for federal funding for rail projects, leveraging real local jobs and a local industry. In a manufacturing agenda for this nation we more than a press conference and a photo opportunity. We need a plan that delivers real investment where it is needed—and quickly.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.