Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

This government has failed. It has failed to plan for a future made in Australia. This government has failed Australian manufacturing. Fact. There were 86,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in February 2022 than there were when Labor was in government. That's a fact. The examples of that are obvious and everywhere. In defence manufacturing, there isn't a defence manufacturing and procurement project this government has not stuffed up. That's the reality. Whether it be submarines or whether it be shipping, thousands of jobs are at risk. In my own electorate, there's the Hawkei project. There are Hawkeis lined up on the lawns at the Thales manufacturing facility in Bendigo that this government has not picked up. It has not paid the bill. They are sitting there waiting. The staff there—the highly skilled workers—bring them in routinely to make sure that they are fit and ready to be picked up. That project finishes when this government is in caretaker mode. That project, that build, will finish in June 2022. The future of that site under this government is unknown. We don't know what is going to happen to that manufacturing facility on this government's watch.

These are not the only jobs that are at risk or have gone because of this government. During the pandemic, manufacturers switched. They listened to the national call to make masks, to make ventilators and to make the medical technology that we need to survive the pandemic. A few months later, those contracts dried up and disappeared. As supply chains in China and parts of South-East Asia opened up, jobs disappeared, and contracts disappeared. GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical manufacturer in Melbourne, announced that they would be closing their doors, in the middle of a pandemic. We have seen pharmaceutical manufacturers close their doors or announce that they're going to close their doors. That's 300 highly skilled manufacturing jobs lost in Melbourne. Pfizer in Perth have announced that they are closing their facility. They're closing their facility on this government's watch. What are the government doing to protect the highly skilled, highly paid jobs we have today? For all the rhetoric and all the press releases, they are not doing enough to secure the jobs we have today and plan for a future made in Australia.

The government boasts about its funds that it had for food manufacturing, yet manufacturers in my electorate missed out. It boasts about the ability to double jobs in food manufacturing, yet manufacturers didn't even get a return call when they asked why they weren't successful. There are supply chain failures in this country. The costs of building supplies have gone through the roof. There is a lot of boasting about how we're going to build our way out of this pandemic through the recovery, yet we haven't secured the supply chains in this country. Homes are not being built, because we don't have enough timber. Steel costs for home construction have gone up by as much as 80 per cent in two years. That's why we're starting to see builders go broke. That's why we're starting to see families' hearts broken, because their dream homes will not be built. We're being told by window manufacturers and makers that there are rations, that they are receiving quotas of what steel they can have, because we have not done enough in this country to secure supply chains and make here in Australia. Cost blowouts, because of this magnitude, will lead to putting jobs in jeopardy and putting projects in jeopardy, and yet this government doesn't have a plan on how to secure supply chains.

Labor does. Not only have we announced that we, in government, will have a national manufacturing plan; we'll also have a defence development strategy to try and fix up the mess that this government has created. Thousands of workers' futures are at risk because this government has not secured defence manufacturing properly. We've announced a buy Australia plan, where we will establish Commonwealth procurement rules and a future made-in-Australia office. That's so we can get the policy settings right in government and so we can buy here first and never have a situation where we ask our manufacturers and med tech to change what they're doing and to manufacture what we need only for those contracts to dry up six months later. Australian taxpayer dollars should be spent on buying Australian made first. This government has an opportunity, at every turn, to make sure that we purchase locally.

I will finish with another one from my electorate. Defence uniforms could be made in Bendigo—the dress uniforms—but they went overseas because the contractor found a cheaper place to manufacture overseas. It could be done in Bendigo, securing 120 jobs in my electorate. That's a missed opportunity on this government's watch. (Time expired)

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