Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is at a critical time in our history. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an economic crisis the likes of which has not been seen in Australia for generations. It has restricted economic activity, disrupted supply chains and limited the movement of goods and people. It's led to high levels of unemployment and a recession. It's exposed Australia's reliance on other countries for manufactured goods, particularly those that are critical to health services, and our dependence on global supply chains. It has exposed our limited manufacturing capability, particularly the ability to pivot and adapt in times of national crisis to produce the goods we need. We need to have strategic capability in our own country, onshore. We have fragile supply chains for a variety of reasons. We can't always rely on trading partners for the services we need offshore. We need to start making Australia make again, and regional Australia has a significant role in doing that.

The national COVID task force has identified the need to reinvigorate and bolster Australia's manufacturing capability. Regional Australia is perfectly placed to lead our manufacturing recovery. Regional Australia is the engine room of the Australian economy, and it has been for more than a century. Back in 1873, Melbourne blacksmith John Furphy embraced the opportunities of living in Victoria's Goulburn Valley to expand and grow his business. Now, 147 years later, not only is the Furphy name synonymous with a refreshing ale but also J Furphy & Sons and Furphy Foundry is a regional Australian manufacturing success story. Today there are thousands of manufacturing success stories right across regional Australia. Derwent Industries is 100 per cent Australian owned and operated by the Evans Group. Doug Evans' vision and that of his sons, Stuart and Craig, is to ensure that their Wodonga manufacturing site expands to make Australia self-sufficient in crucial water and gas pipe-fitting components, instead of relying on Chinese imports, and at the same time growing a new export market.

There's innovation and vision from regional manufacturers, and not just in my home state of Victoria. Marquis Macadamias, based in Bundaberg, Queensland, and in Lismore, New South Wales, is a visionary regional cooperative food processor. It is 100 per cent Australian grower owned, and it's the world's largest macadamia processor. This regional business adapts other nut processing technologies to their needs through research and development. Theirs is a simple strategy: to be the world leaders in macadamias. It is that innovation that builds their competitiveness, and they need trade settings to support that ambition.

I'm excited by our government's investment of $1.5 billion over the next four years for our modern manufacturing strategy, supporting six national manufacturing priorities: resources, technology and critical minerals processing; food and beverage—and I'd like to see fibre manufacturing added to that; medical products; recycling and clean energy; defence; and space. Consider this list. This list is full of existing manufacturers operating in rural and regional Australia. The Nupress group, based in Cardiff in New South Wales, manufactures leading-edge products for the mining, building, aerospace, defence and medical industries. It's a great regional business, supplying the world with highly sophisticated parts for fighter jets.

I want to thank both the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals and HunterNet Co-operative in Newcastle for inviting me to the Hunter Valley region last week so that I could better understand the opportunities and the challenges that manufacturing businesses in regional areas face. And there are some challenges to overcome. Regional development frameworks remain fragmented. Rising energy costs have an impact on the competitiveness of existing and emerging advanced manufacturers in Australia. One thing I heard about time and again from these advanced manufacturers was the lack of skilled workers in the regions. That is why education is so vital. Universities need to equip their graduates and their researchers need to engage with small to medium enterprises, not simply the big boys, and be flexible and adaptive enough to do that. And our TAFE system needs a complete overhaul. We also need to harmonise trade qualifications across TAFEs, so that businesses operating in border towns or across jurisdictions can get the apprentices that they need and move their workforce as required.

We have known for a long time that our research and development pipeline framework just isn't working. We are lagging behind the world in our investment in the framework and the commercialisation of our innovations. We need to catch up and we also need to join up our infrastructure—and not just hard infrastructure such as roads, rail, ports and assisting with the freight task but also our communications infrastructure, which is so important for advanced manufacturing to grow and prosper. However, there is an abundance of opportunity for advanced manufacturing in regional Australia. Proximity to raw materials, such as our fabulous agricultural products and our energy and mineral resources, will prove advantageous through the establishment of vertically integrated supply chains. Our regions are also blessed with an abundance of natural resources and highly advanced resources and agricultural sectors.

It makes no sense to talk about advanced manufacturing while we send our raw products overseas for processing, only to pay a premium when those finished products return to our shelves from overseas. There's considerable scope to move regional Australia up the value chain by focusing on the entire supply chain, not just the original raw product. There are now plenty of jobs in regional communities and a growing population base to supply a skilled workforce for manufacturers looking to expand. ABS data shows that regional Australia attracted 65,000 more people than it lost to capital cities, which is fabulous news, because it shows that we're turning around the brain drain that we've experienced over previous decades. Our city millennials know about the appealing life in regional cities and towns. A recent report by the Regional Australia Institute showed that more millennials have moved from Melbourne and Sydney. Sydney experienced a net loss of 37,000 people because, as we in the regions know, life in the regions is good and you can have a great lifestyle and a great sustainable career in regional Australia doing something you love. We have room to live, grow and play, and I think COVID-19 has highlighted that the enjoyment in having extra space in regions is much prized. We've seen a renewed interest and a significant increase in real estate inquiries in regional cities and towns.

'Black Jack' McEwen, Australia's most significant and longest-serving Minister for Trade, who forged our post-Second World War economic boom, said, 'Australia is one of the few countries in the world that is not only self-sufficient in food and important raw materials but has an export surplus in these things.' He went on to say, 'It would be a great mistake if our manufacturing potential were to be neglected or underestimated.' I share John McEwen's vision for a strong, prosperous and sovereign Australia that actually enjoys the security benefits of an industrialised economy and an advanced manufacturing sector employing hundreds of thousands of Australians. Economic security means jobs. We need to get our production lines humming, we need to restore our sovereign manufacturing capability and we need to make Australia make again.