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

The need to reinvigorate and bolster Australia's manufacturing capability to protect our supply chains in essential products has never been more important. Indeed, its fragility and our overexposure to certain markets has been exposed through the COVID-19 pandemic. The Nationals' ambitious Manufacturing 2035 plan to modernise and rejuvenate Australian manufacturing will do just that. Manufacturing 2035 will get production lines humming and reboot our sovereign manufacturing capability. The Nationals' plan will make Australia make again.

But there are challenges. Our plan is a solid road map to address these challenges because Australians need to be able to buy Australian made products. Over the past decade there have been trade protection measures reduced, with some manufacturing industries all but disappearing from Australian shores. Record demand for Australian resource exports has maintained a relatively high Australian dollar, making it tough for manufacturers to compete against cheaper, mass produced imports often from countries where the tough environmental standards that our own Australian manufacturers operate under do not exist. Our manufacturers have paid 91 per cent more for electricity and 48 per cent more for gas over the past decade. All of these challenges have resulted in our manufacturing decline in real terms, with a five per cent reduction in domestic manufacturing over the past decade. This has had a flow-on impact on Australian jobs, with a new record low of fewer than 850,000 people employed in manufacturing by the end of last year.

But the Nationals are here and we have a plan. Regional Australia is the engine room of the Australian economy and we will continue to lead the way. It is through the can-do attitude of hardworking, visionary Australians that regional Australia accounts for more than 60 per cent of Australia's existing exports. Our plan, released during January, will protect strategic industries;, will increase trade promotion efforts and grow exports; will provide accessible access to finance and capital for those wanting to enter and grow manufacturing efforts, supported by Australian policy; will get people into trades and harmonise qualifications and employment conditions; and will invest in reliable, affordable energy and the strategic infrastructure that supports Australian manufacturing.

Over the last 12 months, I have met with manufacturers right across Australia—via Zoom, obviously, last year, and recently with onsite visits to the Hunter and the Northern Rivers in New South Wales. I've heard what they have had to say. I've heard how we can actually support these brilliant local businesses to grow their potential, reach new heights and employ more people locally. Whilst there are particular issues specific to each region, some of the messages have been clear and consistent. They are ready to expand. They want to help more Australians buy Australian products. They are very passionate about having Australian made products online and on the shelves ready for Australians to buy. They want to employ Australians—very much so—and support the growth and development of their communities. They also need strong government, state and federal, to help them—a government that backs them and their vision for their local business and their industry.

How many pairs of iconic RM William boots do we see walking the halls of parliament? I had the opportunity to bump into the former shadow minister for agriculture, Ed Husic, who hadn't quite around to buying his pair of RMs before he was moved on. But another great champion in the Labor Party of regional Australia—a man that I often find myself agreeing with: Joel Fitzgibbon—does own a few pairs of the iconic RM Williams brand. The Australian bootmaker is expanding. Obviously, it's National Party uniform for us to have multiple pairs!

But how many pairs of iconic RM Williams boots do we see here in parliament and right across Australia, particularly out in the regions? It's great to see they are expanding their factory and bringing manufacturing of that iconic product back home.

Other manufacturing businesses want to do the same. They want to expand and grow. Recently the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals and the HunterNet Co-operative invited myself and Senator Perin Davey to the Hunter Valley in New South Wales so we could better understand the opportunities and challenges they face. I was also able to visit cooperative food manufacturers in the beautiful Northern Rivers region with BCCM to learn about their business ambitions and how government policies can support them in everything from cooperative macadamia processing and blueberry farming to milk and beef processing operating within cooperative structures—all high-tech, advanced food processing manufacturers that want to grow and succeed.

Last week in Sawtell, on the New South Wales North Coast, I was able to meet with foresters in Coffs Harbour with the National Party member for Cowper, Pat Conaghan. They are all great small and medium enterprises, all family businesses. In the Australian Forest Products Association we have some of the most amazing advanced technology being used by these businesses to make sure our sustainably harvested and produced, environmentally sound and principled Australian timber can be turned into beautiful products we can all be very proud of. We can also be very proud that it's produced under high environmental standards. If we import those timber products from other countries, we cannot be as confident in the environmental impact.

I'm very excited about the work we're going to be doing as a party and as a Senate team in supporting food and fibre manufacturers going forward this year. We're also going to be focusing as a group on the EPBC Act review, which severely impacts our foresters and, also, agricultural and development opportunities out in rural and regional Australia. In my home state of Victoria we've got a wonderfully strong timber and forestry sector, particularly down in Gippsland but also through the north-east and over in western Victoria—a sector under attack, I might say, from our state Labor government. It is very disheartening, I think, to see a once-proud party that supported hardworking timber workers turning its back on those regional communities and on that industry itself to chase green votes in Brunswick. I know that's not a view shared by all Labor Party colleagues in this chamber, but, unfortunately, the Labor Party premier of my home state of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, really wants to see the forestry industry cease in our home state. It is very sad to see, and it is something we will be fighting at the state and federal level.

In Kyabram we have Wayne, Peter and David Mulcahy's Kyvalley Dairy Group—the largest and leading bulk fresh milk supplier into South-East Asia, which includes Malaysia and Singapore. Tatura is the home of the largest Australian owned producer of cream cheese and infant formula. We've got some great food and fibre processing happening out in the regions, employing thousands of Australians. We want to see that grow and prosper.

The Nationals want to build our sovereign manufacturing by turning our already abundant primary products into manufactured goods and complex products. Our energy, mineral and agricultural resources are all located out in the regions. We want those high-tech, sustainable careers in the processing side also located out in the regions, which is why our Manufacturing 2035 plan backs the setting up of regional hubs. I know that the Hunter is very excited about being identified in our policy as one of the key areas, along with Gladstone, where we can set up a regional hub, where we can really focus on the already existing capacity in regions like the Hunter and Gladstone for advanced manufacturing of primary products. Whether it is our mineral resources, food or fibre, that capacity, that skill set, that passion, that know-how already exists in those regions, and we want to build on that going forward.

We want to do it for two reasons. We believe that we should have a sovereign capacity here, located onshore, that we as Australians control and that is less subject to the vagaries and challenging of overseas trading partners and global unforeseeable circumstances, such as COVID-19. But we also want to see those jobs here at home. We want to reboot Aussie manufacturing. We have a nine-point plan to do that. We're delivering, and we look forward to getting production lines humming right across Australia.