Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor government says they have a commitment to Australian manufacturing and making things here. The former Liberal government said the same thing. I have to ask how that's going, after a recent decision from the Department of Defence to give a tender—to create ration packs for the Australian Defence Force—to a New Zealand company. It was a contract worth $259 million. We've sent that money across the ditch instead of investing it here.

The defence minister says that because of our economic relations treaty with New Zealand they have to treat New Zealand companies as Australian companies for tenders. I'm all for being friendly with our Kiwi neighbours but, to be honest, that doesn't really make any sense. Why would we send $259 million of your taxpayer money to New Zealand when it could be spent on Aussie companies? It could be invested here in Aussie jobs. It might have been fine back in the eighties but we saw what happened during the pandemic. We know that we need to shore up sovereign control of foreign supply chains. We have businesses in our own backyard that can do this. I know where I'd prefer my money to go.

A Tassie company was part of a group that put their hand up for the job. I visited Forager Food at their factory last year and talked with them about what this could mean for their company, the kinds of job opportunities that could create for Tasmanians. I'm completely gutted for them. I'm gutted for the Tassie farmers who have lost a market selling food to our soldiers. This contract would have invested $12 million to $15 million per year into Tasmania.

The 'Make things here in Australia' line is a great slogan for governments to bring out at election time but I'm not seeing it backed up by decisions made by bureaucrats in the Canberra bubble. For companies like Forager Food in Tasmania, this decision could have made a huge difference.