Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a matter of national importance. As the COVID-19 pandemic buffeted the world and severed supply chains across the world, our nation began to realise that years of Liberal economic policies and speeches of the kind that we have just heard have done nothing to correct the whittling down of our sovereign capability. In fact, they have left our nation with a depleted manufacturing base. Australians who trusted the three versions of this Liberal-National government since 2013 have been lied to, ripped off and let down.

For eight years, this Liberal-National government has been pushing out blue pamphlets claiming it's the party of jobs and growth. But there's been a steady decline in the number of manufacturing jobs. That hurts. It hurts workers who've lost their jobs, it hurts local economies where they used to spend their hard-earned cash and it hurts entire industries, like car manufacturing. But loss of manufacturing also hurts every Australian. It makes us less safe and less able to look after ourselves. COVID has shown that we cannot take international trade and movement for granted anymore. Those days are gone. We need to manufacture by ourselves, for ourselves. But this government doesn't care for you or your needs as Australians.

In my home region of the Central Coast, manufacturing is a vital, important industry, supporting thousands of jobs and helping our region weather the storm of COVID-19. Commonsense government policy should be to support manufacturers like those on the coast and, indeed, in communities right across the country. Any industry minister worth their salt would use their ministerial powers to support domestic industries over foreign competitors. But Minister Andrews is not a commonsense minister.

In 2015, then Parliamentary Secretary Karen Andrews signed several ministerial exemption instruments that removed antidumping duties on steel from the People's Republic of China. Given the choice of protecting Australians or letting China dump steel, Karen Andrews chose China over Australia. This was despite near-universal reporting that China was, in fact, dumping steel on the market. In April 2016 Arrium, the major steel producer that ran the Whyalla steelworks in South Australia, went into administration. The Whyalla steelworks was only saved—not by this government, not by industrial policy, not by Mr Morrison and not by anybody in the Liberal-National government—by workers at the Whyalla steelworks, who agreed to large cuts in conditions and pay just to keep it functioning.

A subsequent Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into Australia's steel industry and the Arrium collapse cited in its Australia's steel industry: forging ahead report:

The pressures caused by the influx of dumped and subsidised steel … are considerably greater than the normal pressures expected in naturally competitive markets, creating additional pressures on the Australian steel industry.

That very well-researched report, tabled in this very parliament, also noted that the industry:

… will continue to decline without urgent action by the Australian government to address the issues of … unfair import competition.

Yet, despite 28 recommendations which would have saved jobs and protected Australian sovereignty, the Liberal governments—all flavours of the three ones that we have already had in the last eight years—did nothing. Karen Andrews did absolutely nothing.

By 2017 the Australian Workers Union was reporting that local companies appeared to have lost $200 million in work due to dumping in the previous 12 to 18 months following Minister Andrews's decision and action to roll back antidumping protections. Even today, industry minister Karen Andrews has implemented precisely zero of that report's recommendations.

Not only have the government failed to respond to the recommendations of the steel industry report; they've lied to Australians about protecting and growing Australian jobs. Both Morrison and Karen Andrews have vacated the space and let the antidumping reform process stall over and over. The effect has been the frustration of the Australian industry. Antidumping has been described as a regulatory arms race. In a race, you cannot step off the track. Refinements to laws and methods need to be updated regularly to react to adaptive predatory behaviour by unscrupulous exporters targeting the Australian industry. However, the last substantive antidumping reform package that this government brought to the parliament was way back in 2015.

Parliamentary Secretary Andrews, as she was in November 2015, put out a media release. This is what she said back then:

While Australia's current anti-dumping system is strong it must keep pace with industry trends. The Government is committed to working with stakeholders over the coming months to identify future reform opportunities to further strengthen our anti-dumping and countervailing system.

Her commitment was a declaration of a decision to do nothing. What she says and what she's done are completely at odds. Her word means nothing. Yet we have the continued charade of consultation. The industry has spent thousands of hours consulting with the department on reform options and has waited years and years for these much-needed reforms. Despite a package being finalised by the department for the minister and cabinet's consideration on multiple occasions, under Minister Andrews and her predecessors, reform has gone nowhere.

Recent Senate estimates reveal how careless the government is on antidumping, with Minister Andrews slashing funding for the Anti-Dumping Commission by five per cent for this financial year and by 13 per cent compared to the funding of 2016. She has also engaged in a process which has led to the currently highly respected commissioner, Mr Dale Seymour—a man unrivalled in his knowledge of the antidumping system in Australia since becoming the inaugural commissioner in 2013—effectively being forced out of office from the end of this month.

Despite the US slapping tariffs on steel imports and the EU enacting emergency safeguards on steel imports, the Australian government has done nothing. Minister Andrews and the MIA Mr Morrison, our Prime Minister, will not even contemplate transferring responsibility for safeguard investigations from the Productivity Commission to the Anti-Dumping Commission, which is best international practice. There's not one Australian minister standing up. This government has vacated the field. There's not one frontbencher on so-called Team Australia taking up the industry ball for us. Mr Morrison's Cronulla Sharks jersey and his cap might create the impression that he understands teamwork, but whenever he's been needed to put on the jersey for Team Australia, for the Australian industry sector, he hasn't even shown up for the training session, let alone made it onto the field. His industry minister—well, she's a 'Karen'.

This is all occurring at a time when Australian industry faces unprecedented threats from dumping. As state and federal governments spend billions in infrastructure and housing projects to help the economy recover from the biggest shock since the Great Depression, our domestic demands for steel have become even more vulnerable to cheap, dumped foreign steel. At this critical moment when Australian industry requires a responsive trade remedy system and a dedicated minister willing to do everything in the government's power to defend Australian jobs against unfair trade, we are struck with an industry minister and a Prime Minister who are paralysed. They have an appalling record. They're asleep at the wheel, leaving manufacturing jobs as a sitting duck to predatory behaviour.

Australia needs a local steel industry. It supports regional jobs. It protects our national sovereignty and defence procurement in a time of war. As the pandemic has shown us, local manufacturing is crucial when supply lines are disrupted. Australians understand today, in February 2021, what was less obvious to us in February 2020, pre-pandemic. We need to build our own. Australians want to build our own. If you believe in Australian industry and manufacturing jobs, it's only Labor that's going to do the work. Three LNP governments have failed to address this critical problem and have failed to save jobs for hardworking Australians. It's a fact that, since Karen Andrews became the industry minister, the playing field for Australian industry has become far less level, and the results have been dire.

According to the latest quarterly figures from the ABS, which came out in November, there were 128,400 fewer jobs in the manufacturing industry. That's a 13.5 per cent decrease. Let's put it another way: a manufacturing job has been lost every four minutes since Karen Andrews became minister. That's the loss of two manufacturing jobs since I started speaking, and that's because of the government's failure to act in this critical area. It doesn't need to be like this. I thank the Australian Workers Union and the CFMMEU for their advocacy on behalf of their workers, because the government has abandoned the field. (Time expired)