Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise today as a proud member of the Albanese government in this chamber to speak about our government's plan to bring manufacturing back home and back to many regions, like the region I live in—regional Queensland. Before I go through the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023, the fund that the bill will establish and how the fund will support manufacturing workers, I want to address some of the comments that have been made in this debate.

I apologise to Queensland manufacturing workers who are watching this debate for the words that were used in describing their contribution to our state. I certainly do not agree with the Liberal senator who called manufacturing workers rent-seekers. I don't think manufacturing workers in Maryborough who build our trains are rent-seekers. I don't think the manufacturing workers in Cairns who maintain, build and repair our naval ships are rent-seekers. I don't think our sugar workers, whether in Mossman, Gordonvale or Mackay, who produce the sugar that we send overseas and eat ourselves are rent-seekers. I certainly don't think the men and women in defence manufacturing at Rheinmetall in Brisbane are rent-seekers.

It was an appalling slur against good men and women who simply seek to have a good, secure local job—and many of them are in regional Queensland. It's not a new concept to Queenslanders that the LNP doesn't support manufacturing or manufacturing workers. I know that those words will really cut home. I seek to distance myself from those statements and make it clear that we on this side of the chamber value the work that manufacturing workers do. We want to create more manufacturing jobs in this country, and that's what this bill seeks to do.

Labor's National Reconstruction Fund will invest $15 billion in rebuilding Australia's manufacturing industry. The fund will revitalise Australian industry after a decade of coalition neglect and the extraordinary pressure industry experienced earlier in the pandemic. It will provide loans, equity investment and guarantees for seven strategic investment areas for our long-term security and prosperity. It will provide finance for projects that add value, improve productivity and support transformation, rather than enabling expansion of business as usual.

Our bill will ensure that significant investment is above politics, with the fund being administered by an independent board that will assess the projects at arms-length from government. It will be staffed by industry and finance experts, who will ensure that the most up-to-date, clear advice is available and utilised at all times. What's better is that we expect a positive rate of return.

It will be a desperately needed boost for those seven priority industry areas. We are looking to value-add in resources because we are a country rich in minerals and it is only right that we transform them into valuable products right here in our country. We shouldn't be mining critical minerals just to ship them overseas, for profits to be made by other countries and other workers and for jobs to be created elsewhere. We want those jobs right here in Australia. We have the skills and we need to do it right here.

We are investing in value-adding in the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors as well. The last few years have shown just how important food security is for our country. The last few years have also shown us what kinds of challenges we need to be ready for. That's why one of the areas we are prioritising is investing in medical science.

We are making up for lost time, after 10 years of climate inaction and denial, by making renewables a priority investment area. We are also bolstering our strategic workforce skills advantages by prioritising our defence capability. Some defence manufacturing is happening in my home state of Queensland. We're underwriting all of this potential by investing in enabling capabilities like quantum robotics and AI. It's a really exciting prospect that all of these different areas of investment will be prioritised by this government and by this fund so that we can get these ideas off the ground and we can be ahead of the times when it comes to investing in advanced manufacturing.

Most excitingly, we have a government that is finally backing Australian workers, industry and communities by including transport manufacturing in the seven priority areas. I'm particularly excited about this investment because, in my home state of Queensland, we've proven what comes from investing in manufacturing and investing in regional communities. It was a state Labor and government who brought rail manufacturing back home to Maryborough and the workers in that region, who make up a third of the existing manufacturing workforce who benefit from decisions like these. These are the workers that these decisions matter to.

Maryborough, as a thriving industrial town, has rail facilities that employ hundreds of workers. There is long-term certainty, because we know that big projects like rail or defence or resources are long-term projects. That means that families can make a life in regional Queensland because workers know they have a long-term, secure job. These projects drive growth up and down the supply chain, creating jobs in small and medium enterprises. This investment isn't just about the job on the manufacturing floor; it's about the childcare centre, the cafe, the teacher, the person working in the local school—all supported by a rich history of manufacturing jobs in a regional town like Maryborough. It's a story that shows how investing in manufacturing can transform communities, states and, hopefully soon, the nation.

Since the change of government, support for regional manufacturing is back on the agenda. The Albanese Labor government took to the election a plan to rebuild Australian manufacturing and the jobs that come with it. Since coming to government, I've had the opportunity to visit dozens of manufacturing sites across regional Queensland—something that I've continued to do since being elected. I'm always interested to find out the types of things that we make in regional Queensland and what we could be making more of if we just got the chance to do so. Last week I visited a local window and door manufacturer in Cairns. Some of the staff have worked there for over 20 years. I really shouldn't be surprised by the length of their service, because manufacturing jobs are secure jobs. Secure jobs mean that families can build a life in regional towns, and that means regional towns can build a prosperous future. It means that young people in the regions can build a life for themselves without having to move too far from home, which is something I know is important to parents in regional communities as well.

Regional Queensland can and should be a manufacturing powerhouse. We already make trains in Maryborough, which was a blueprint for the prosperity that this government's support for manufacturing can deliver. Now our National Reconstruction Fund promises to unlock more opportunities in more regional towns. We should be making more things in Cairns, in Townsville, in Rockhampton and in Bundaberg as well. Not only does it mean good local jobs and industry; it also contributes to our economy being more robust and complex. Regional manufacturing jobs don't just benefit the towns where they are based; they benefit the whole community.

Already, as a Labor government, we are investing in projects like the Cairns Marine Precinct, a $300 million investment into the marine precinct there to maintain and build and repair ships for our naval fleet. I announced this alongside Minister Catherine King a few months ago and am very pleased to continue to visit the shipyards there in Cairns to see the work progressing. We are investing in the Townsville Hydrogen Hub, which will ensure that regional Queensland is a centrepiece of our path to become a renewable energy superpower. We're also backing the cutting-edge research, development and training facility in Townsville referred to as NQ Spark.

All across Queensland, Labor is investing in regional workforce, infrastructure and ingenuity to rebuild Australian manufacturing and industry. The National Reconstruction Fund will supercharge all of these investments. Make no mistake: this is a very good-news story. It's a good-news story for manufacturing and businesses, it's a good-news story for regional Queensland, and it's a good-news story for regional families. It's a story that makes the decision by those opposite to vote against the bill all that more disappointing. Every day in this place it seems like LNP senators are standing up to talk about how they're the party for the regions and yet, without a second thought, they threw up their hands and said no to the biggest peacetime investment in Australian history, one that will create jobs in regional Queensland. When we consider the state that those opposite left our manufacturing industry in, it becomes clear that maybe their opposition is more than just sheepish, that it's a little bit of embarrassment. They weren't up to the job of securing our supply chains when they were in government, they weren't up to the job of growing heavy industry and they weren't up to the job of creating good secure jobs in our regions.

It's no secret that manufacturing in Australia has declined steadily over the past decade under the Liberals and Nationals. It's an absolute disgrace that, at the time of the last election, Australia was ranked at the very bottom of the OECD list of self-sufficiency ratings in manufacturing. Industry provides economic sovereignty and security, and Australia ranked dead last in those ratings. Manufacturing grows regional economies and secures long-term jobs, and yet we continued to slide down the scale. Our manufacturing sector makes up only seven per cent of our gross domestic product. But it isn't just a set of statistics and economic indicators; we lived this through the pandemic and we saw the impact of not being able to manufacture things right here in Australia.

We know that during the pandemic healthcare workers were making their own PPE because we didn't have enough. For a time, supermarket shelves were empty and we were at the mercy of more self-sufficient countries in accessing vaccine supplies, because our capacity to manufacture vaccines ourselves was incredibly limited, and our much-needed summer break was ruined because we were relying on scarce imported RATs. But the truth is that everyone saw this coming, particularly the manufacturing workers who had been belling the cat for years. Apparently, everyone knew, except for the former government, that we didn't make enough things here. Successive Liberal-National governments pushed the car industry out of Australia. They slashed R&D support, stifling innovation, and they cut funding for apprentices and trainees, which dried up the skills pool we needed to create more jobs and to make more things here. That's the legacy of those opposite when it comes to manufacturing. It's a legacy that they're standing by today when they choose to vote against this bill.

Let's be clear about this bill and this policy. It's good policy. It's not only good policy but its outcomes will create a design to make sure that, unlike so many programs under the previous government, the National Reconstruction Fund will make investment decisions free from political interference. There will be no colour-coded spreadsheets, no secret industry minister and no rorts like we saw in the sports and car park funding. Australians can be assured that we have designed this policy to be governed with integrity. This policy will be administered by an independent board and will make decisions based on expert industry and financial advice. And it is expected to deliver a return on investment. This is good policy, and it's about those good people who are manufacturing workers in our country. I've had the real privilege, not only to meet many of them but to understand what drives them.

I'll say today, in this Senate, that this is a policy and a commitment to support manufacturing workers. I know that the debate will go down many channels and that there'll be many excuses from those opposite. But, on this side of the chamber, and through this policy, we support manufacturing workers. The people who vote against this policy don't support manufacturing workers. It's black-and-white: we support manufacturing in regional Queensland, and I encourage other senators to do the same. I say to those manufacturing workers in regional Queensland: whether you work in sugar, train manufacturing or marine manufacturing, thank you for the work that you do. I'm so proud to represent you and to deliver this policy for you today.