Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to have the opportunity to talk about modern manufacturing and how Australia has bounced back well from the COVID induced recession that we had, but nobody in Australia would look around and say that we've got this thing covered. We are a nation that has built its wealth out of what we can grow and what we can dig out of the ground, and there are enormous opportunities in Australia for us to value-add to so many of our different products in a whole range of sectors. We can improve on that, and getting that process in manufacturing industries up and running is why the modern manufacturing program that is in place at the moment is calling for companies that have the opportunity to take their primary produce to a second and third level to do so. It's matching funding from $1 million up to $20 million. This is a billion-dollar fund that is going to inject billions of dollars into modern manufacturing.

There are a whole range of options we have here. This country produces 95 per cent of the world's fine wool, but we send 95 per cent of that to China in a raw state. Surely there's an opportunity for us to co-invest with industries that can actually value-add to all of that fine wool rather than simply buy back Italian suits and ridiculously high prices. That's just one example where I'd love to think that the federal government and the private sector in this country could partner up to co-invest in the production of so many fantastic products that we have, because we have an incredible capacity to develop and grow so many high-quality products.

I'm very, very proud of what happens in my patch in the Goulburn Valley in the seat of Nicholls. We have SPC. The Shepparton Preserving Company has been one of Australia's iconic businesses for close on 100 years. It has gone from being a co-op to being privately owned. It was run by Coca-Cola and they sold it and now there is another group that is doing amazing things in taking SPC to another level. We have the Campbell's Soups. That has been in the area for years. It has really diversified and is making thousands of tonnes of stock each and every year for all of those budding chefs that have actually learnt how to cook in the last 12 months. Unilever have a large plant at Tatura and there's Fonterra and all of the milk processes—Bega, ACM, Freedom Foods, Parmalat and Saputo. There is an enormous number of milk processors.

What we have to understand is that, when we support the processors, they will go out and spend money in the engineering sector. The amount of stainless steel that exists in the Goulburn Valley on the back of what we do with milk processing is quite phenomenal. So our engineering industries are tied implicitly to our agricultural sector and our agricultural sector is tied to our food processors. So it is important that we invest in them and support them with policy. This is where the Labor Party have got to be very, very careful, because this is all wrapped up in water policy also. If you have horrendously damaging water policy, you are going to put agriculture on the back foot. If you put agriculture on the back foot, you put food processing on the back foot and then you put engineering on the back foot. Representing these areas, you learn very quickly how it is all tied together.

The federal government's investment in the fruit industry in my area is helping some of these farms with netting programs. It is also helping them to take their packing and sorting processes to a world-class level. It's about making sure that every piece of fruit is photographed thousands and thousands of times to ensure that that piece of fruit finds its way to its optimum value, whether it is to be sold as a piece of fresh fruit, whether it needs to be processed and put into a jar or a can or whether it needs to be juiced or pulped. These are the decisions that can be made now with modern technology that can look at these pieces tens of thousands of times. This type of technology is available because we've got a federal government that is prepared to co-invest with our industries.

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