Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm really pleased to speak today in favour of the Australian Made logo. But it's more than that, isn't it? It's standing to speak in support of, and to promote, Australian made: Australian manufacturers, Australian workers, Australian businesses.

The member for Curtin, who put this motion forward, noted that the Australian Made logo, the iconic kangaroo, was introduced by the Hawke government. Of course, for many decades Bob Hawke really was the 'Australian made' logo. You saw Bob Hawke and you knew that he was a Prime Minister and a man who was all about Australia and Australian made. You certainly didn't look at Bob Hawke and think about money being spent on spin and advertising and trying to sell the idea of doing something for the Australian people. He was about doing something for the Australian people.

It is extraordinary that this motion is being put up at a time when the government have just tried to change the Australian Made logo. They tried to change it from the iconic kangaroo, about which almost 100 per cent of Australians say they know what it means and associate it not just with something being made in Australia but with absolute quality, into a logo that, for whatever reason, looks like a coronavirus. Not only did the government try to change the logo into a gold, sparkly coronavirus, which perhaps 12 months ago we might have thought was pretty but which now we think is contagious; they spent $10 million doing it. How do you spend $10 million getting a new design in the first place, and then how do you find a design that you have to walk away from—or not really walk away from but run backwards from—when you put it out and everyone says: 'What are you talking about? It's a coronavirus, not the iconic logo.' It's interesting to note, of course, that this coronavirus Australian logo was produced, at a cost of $10 million, and walked away from at a time when the Prime Minister has said, 'There can't be any consultation or work on an integrity commission because not one single public servant will be taken away from working on COVID!' That is except for the ones who've worked on the $10 million new logo that no-one likes and that doesn't do its job.

That's not a manufacturing policy and it's certainly not an Australian Made logo. To appropriate possibly the best-known Australian-made phrase of the 20th century: 'That's not a manufacturing plan; this is a manufacturing plan.' It is what the Leader of the Opposition and Labor have been saying about a future made in Australia: don't spend money on logos, spin and advertising; actually have a plan, a coordinated strategy, across the areas that are needed to bolster Australian manufacturing. Have a jobs and skills plan. Have an actual plan for investing in industries. Do things like rewire the electricity grid so that there is transmission of energy in the 21st century and beyond from Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower and so that there are jobs. Do the work with industry to deliver support.

We heard yesterday from the minister herself that, from the so-called $1.5 billion manufacturing plan of this government that is supposed to be delivering economic stimulus to help us get out of this recession, $40 million is anticipated to be spent in this financial year. By the way, that is less than what was in the budget papers. So already they've reduced what was in the budget papers. It's $10 million on a logo and $40 million on supporting manufacturing and Australian jobs through a recession. There's just something not right. Let's just hope we don't get another four silly logos. That is right. Absolutely, the Australian Made logo is iconic and we know that Australian manufacturers can be and are second to none in innovation and smarts, but they need more than a government that says. 'Let's spend money on advertising and let's put motions forward in the parliament.' They need a government that has a manufacturing plan and has workers' backs.

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