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

If you eat Cadbury chocolate—let's be honest; I reckon most of you do—odds are that a Tassie family farmed the dairy to make that chocolate. I think that's pretty cool. Did you know that local dairy farmers in north-west Tasmania supply almost a billion litres of milk to Cadbury a year, which makes about 60,000 tonnes of chocolate? I was lucky to visit the Burnie Cadbury factory a few weeks ago. The Burnie factory is where the fresh local milk is collected. I love getting to do on-site visits and meet the amazing Tassie people who are working so hard and learn about how the fabulous technology they're using results in product. After the milk is processed in Burnie, it's transported to Cadbury's factory in Claremont, just outside Hobart. I'm looking forward to doing Cadbury's paddock to plate and sampling the finished product at the Claremont factory soon.

Cadbury has been operating in Tasmania for over 100 years. Today they employ 700 direct and indirect full-time workers, and the company contributes a huge amount to the Tasmanian economy. We've talked a lot about local manufacturing in the past few years. We don't make cars here anymore, but, in the pandemic, we realised we were completely reliant on China for critical health equipment, and we need to do more stuff here. Cadbury shows that making stuff in Australia is possible. You can have success doing it. They've proven that local manufacturing can be competitive globally.

Investing in making things here is investing in Australian jobs. Doesn't that just make sense? It did to Cadbury, and you can see the benefits to Tasmania. Next time you're enjoying a little piece of chocolate, think about the amazing Tassie dairy farmers and the hundreds of Tassie workers who made it possible. What an amazing story. I can't wait to see what they do in the next 100 years.