Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We've never had it so good! And do you know, with this $1 trillion debt—$50,000 a minute in interest on the national credit card, being so generous with borrowed money—you would think Australians would feel they had achieved something for this, but they don't. They are falling further and further behind, struggling, punished by a government policy that has not backed them in.

But do you know what we didn't hear today? We didn't hear a delivery about something very important that the Albanese government has not done. It has not done anything around its Made in Australia policy. I want to take everybody back to the Future Made in Australia announcement. Future Made in Australia was 18 months ago. We all heard that there was $22 billion, there was a front door—does anyone remember the front door? There was a front door—it's a new bureaucracy. You go through the front door and you get something that enables you to be a business, an organisation, a manufacturer of something made in Australia. So I thought I'd check it out. I went on the website. How much of the $22 billion has been spent on the front door? Zero. Do you know what's happening on the website? They're in the consultation phase. Eighteen months later, they're in the consultation phase.

The member for Hume, the member for Wannon and the deputy leader, who all understand energy really well, will recognise what I'm about to say. A few weeks ago I stood at Tomago Aluminium, in the same spot—I made sure it was the same spot—that the Prime Minister stood in January this year. He pointed to Tomago Aluminium and said, 'This is what a future made in Australia looks like.' He said that this aluminium smelter will be employing Australians for 40 more years, and he spruiked the big renewable energy transition. Anyway, when I was there, it was a completely different story. The Prime Minister was nowhere to be seen.

The Tomago aluminium smelter was switched on in 1983. It has run 24/7 since 1983. You can't turn a smelter off. Not only that, but it's pretty much the best aluminium smelter in the world. The member for Grey is nodding, because he knows. He's got smelters in his electorate, and they're all on life support, or they've run up the white flag. And we don't have Made in Australia; we have bailed out in Australia, because under this government's energy plan you actually can't make things in Australia. So you didn't hear, in the year of delivery, anything from this government about Made in Australia.

I'll tell you what we don't make in Australia anymore that we should be making in Australia. We don't make plastics—the sorts of plastics that go into packaging, agriculture and production. We don't make nitrogen fertilisers. We barely make any cement. We import nearly all our bitumen. We don't make any architectural glass. The housing minister's not here. She should be listening to this, because one of the reasons houses are so expensive is that everything in the house has to come from overseas, and everyone who was making steel and aluminium, glass and bricks has been punished by the safeguard mechanism under this government.

You new members should really have a look at this safeguard mechanism, because it taxes you if you make emissions. So, do you know what happens? Someone else makes the emissions somewhere else in the world. Does the planet know the difference? Unfortunately not. But what we see here in this country is that there is no Made in Australia. Do you all want to live in a country that doesn't make things anymore—the things that are the modern building blocks of a civilised society? Look at how they've gone offshore. In fact, it's been estimated by experts that you listen to that in order for you, the Labor Party, to reach your 2030—

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