Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon I rise to support the wonderful work being done by the community of Collie towards a just transition—work supported by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. Collie is a coal town, as is evident in its name. It's been that way for a hundred years. But now that community is facing an inevitable change, and it's facing that change head-on. Coal is actually a finite resource in the town, and even if you didn't believe that climate change is real, you would see that the state has to make a decision about ending the production of coal fired energy in the state's energy grid. But as politicians have wasted time arguing, people on the ground have deeply begun the task of creating a just transition for their community. That work began as early as back in 2007.

If you jump forward to today, we have workers, businesses, community leaders and the state government working together to build a new future for the town. They were here in Canberra yesterday with state ministers Whitby and Michael, respectively the minister for energy and the minister responsible for industry. They were here to talk to the national parliament about how the Labor government's policies around Future Made in Australia intersect with their own plans. I heard directly from delegates from the Griffin coalmine and the Muja Power Station, as well as from companies who want to invest in manufacturing green steel and green magnesium, alongside other green metal industries. They're really supportive as communities, working together with industry, with government and with workers and their unions, hear how these tripartite structures, built from a bottom-up consensus basis, are absolutely critical to getting a just transition right, making sure that no-one is left behind and building the jobs for workers and their children and the future of their town.

The future of Collie looks like advanced manufacturing, green metals processing, renewable energy, big batteries and tourism. The kind of just transition we're seeing people work on there is world leading and will have lessons for the rest of the nation, who need to make this transition too. It's a transition that's getting attention from many of our major trading partners. Our Prime Minister visited the town of Collie last week and saw what's going on for himself. He is the first Prime Minister to visit there since Prime Minister Hawke. I'm proud that, as a government, we're standing up for regional workers across the country.

We have, of course, legislated for a net zero economic authority which will see that interface between communities, industries, state governments and the Commonwealth really get these transitions moving. And move we must, because if we're to meet our climate targets, we must really dig deep into this work now. In addition, Future Made in Australia and the legislation attached to that are designed to create the necessary investment to make these transitions possible, and our Labor government is bringing people together on a tripartite basis. Business, workers, unions, community and government are working collaboratively to make these changes.

I want to be clear to those on the opposition benches who find the idea of tripartism so awful and I want to point out to them that industry representatives are very clear about the role of workers and unions. To quote them, 'We would not get these projects off the ground without the union.' We can get consensus and progress when we have governments, business and communities all working together and collaborating. What we have from the opposition, though, is an expensive nuclear power station.