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

I thank the member for Bass for her question. The member, like everyone on this side of the House, knows that the Morrison government is all about backing Australian workers. We're doing that by backing Australian businesses and growing industries so that we can create the jobs that we need for the industries of the future. The coalition doesn't see this as a zero-sum game. We don't see this as an either/or; we see this as an and—that is, we can back our existing core traditional industries at the same time as we can support and back our emerging industries. In fact sometimes the existing and traditional industries and the new and emerging industries are very complementary. The best example of this is the mining sector, where we are one of the most technologically advanced in the world. That's why NASA is so interested in working with our mining sector and looking at mining and remote operations. What you can see is the existing business of mining working closely with the emerging industry of the space sector to grow business opportunities, to grow our industries and to create more jobs.

In the time remaining I'd like to run through a couple of the other areas where we are making sure that we are growing Australian industries and supporting jobs of the future. Firstly, we launched the $160 million Manufacturing Modernisation Fund. This provides grants of up to $1 million in matched funding to help our manufacturing businesses to upgrade and to ensure workers are able to upskill. Secondly, we're investing $150 million into Australian businesses so that they can be part of NASA's Moon to Mars project. This is part of our plan to triple the size of the space sector here in Australia, so that it goes from $4 billion to $12 billion by 2030 and creates an additional 20,000 jobs. We're backing advanced manufacturers like XTEK in South Australia, which I recently visited. They're looking, over the next few years, to hire 45 new engineers, technicians and machinists. We've engaged in the critical minerals industry, so we now have a formal agreement with the US on critical minerals. Australia vanadium was given major project status in September this year. In regional Western Australia they will create 500 construction jobs and 240 ongoing jobs. That's without me even having time to talk about hydrogen and the benefits that the hydrogen sector has in terms of exports and jobs growth here in this nation.