Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the local manufacturing businesses within my electorate of McPherson. Manufacturing as a whole has been struggling across the nation, and over 100,000 jobs have been lost over the last three years from that sector alone. Many of the issues that are being experienced across Australia are also reflected in my electorate of McPherson. The Gold Coast economy has long been considered dependent on tourism and construction, but there is also a significant manufacturing and education presence on the Gold Coast and we need to develop those sectors to support employment, particularly when there is a downturn in tourism and construction as there is at present.

Unemployment is an issue in itself on the southern Gold Coast. The most recent ABS figures for July this year show that unemployment on the southern Gold Coast was 6.4 per cent. This compared with a Queensland average of 5.4 per cent and a national average of 5.1 per cent. On the southern Gold Coast our unemployment rate is one per cent higher than the average Queensland rate and about 1.5 per cent higher than the national average. However, I am not convinced that the data represents the actual unemployment rates and circumstances that we are experiencing currently on the Gold Coast. The hidden or forgotten statistic applies predominantly but not exclusively to women. This is the part-time and casual workforce.

Many businesses have reduced or stopped completely engaging casuals and part-time employees, and this situation is not captured entirely by the ABS statistics. Arguably, the unemployment statistics for the Gold Coast are much higher than reported. However, it is not all doom and gloom on the Gold Coast, because there are opportunities for us there.

I recently visited a local manufacturer, the Rockcrush Group in Burleigh Heads. Rockcrush manufactures marine winches, mining winches and general winches as well as dredges. Rockcrush prides itself on the export of these dredges, which are equipped with the latest technology and are designed for modular containerisation, which allows for easy transportation, handling and assembly overseas. I thank the CEO of Rockcrush, Peter van den Berg, and his staff for welcoming me and the member for Indi to their site. Most of the staff at Rockcrush are skilled boilermakers and so on. Mr van den Berg explained to us that there was capacity at that site to increase the number of skilled boilermakers, but he has had issues finding quality, skilled and experienced boilermakers on the Gold Coast as many of these workers are seeking employment in regions with major manufacturing industries.

There is clearly an opportunity for the Gold Coast. We do have the capacity to increase our manufacturing and to bring more manufacturers into the Gold Coast, and we have a number of industrial estates within my electorate, including Burleigh, Burleigh Waters and Currumbin.

I recently hosted a manufacturing forum with the member for Indi at the Gold Coast, and we invited along representatives from various manufacturing industries in my electorate, and also the surfboard industry, to talk about the issues that were of concern to them. During the discussion the issue of imported surfboards was raised. Our manufacturers realise they need to compete with international manufacturers and that is not an issue for them. What is an issue is the incorrect labelling of the boards that are being imported for sale in Australia. The ‘Australian Made’ logo has been identifying local manufactured products for many years. However, alternative versions of this logo including the Australian flag or the words ‘Made in Australia’ can deceive consumers into buying goods which they believe will benefit our local manufacturers and stimulate our economy but are not necessarily made here.

According to the fact sheet titled ‘Labelling requirements for surfboards’ from the Australian Customs Service, imported surfboards:

… require a trade description with the name of the country in which the goods were made or produced …

I note that the trade description must be in the form of a principal label or brand, and there are various other requirements. Local manufacturers say this is not always the case, and the boards imported from overseas are not necessarily correctly labelled. This becomes an issue for our local surfers who want to purchase local boards and are often deceived and lured in by incorrect labelling. We call for correct labelling to assist our surfboard manufacturing. (Time expired)