Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was really pleased to receive some information from my local university in Lindsay, Western Sydney University, around our local manufacturing industry today, which says that Western Sydney is the site of Australia's largest industry concentration of manufacturing, generating excess of $41.5 billion per annum. The manufacturing sector employs approximately 114,000—up to almost 115,000—people in Western Sydney alone, and across transport, warehousing and logistics supports an additional 71,000 jobs. These are pretty impressive numbers, but, in Western Sydney, as across Australia, we have a lot more to do when it comes to backing Australian manufacturing.

I do speak a lot about manufacturing and advanced manufacturing in this place, and for very good reason. Recently I convened the Lindsay Jobs of the Future Forum, which is made up of representatives from primary schools and secondary schools in Lindsay; our local tertiary institutions, the university, TAFE; industry experts; local manufacturers; and business and science institutions. We come together and discuss how we can advocate for small business and influence policy making.

As part of this group, we established the Advancing Manufacturing Taskforce, which I'm leading. I'm really pleased to say that as part of this taskforce I have representatives from Western Sydney Institute, Kingswood TAFE, Sydney Science Park, Nepean Community College, a Schools Industry Partnership, Swinburne university, and of course Western Sydney University in addition to local manufacturers, which is really important. The taskforce will investigate and promote local and national opportunities for advanced manufacturing in Western Sydney, advocate for manufacturing and backing our manufacturing industry and, as I said, attempt to influence better policy making when it comes to supporting our manufacturers. Where there is an opportunity to collaborate or draw from existing taskforces, we will seek to achieve this as a tangible outcome. I'm looking forward to working closely with our taskforce and presenting our findings to the Morrison government.

The challenge we've faced for many years is that we don't always see the benefits of supporting Australian industry and business by buying Australian-made where we can. Every time you purchase an Australian product, you're making sure that the revenue is kept in Australia, and that flows onto the millions of Australians who need jobs. It keeps Australia competitive and, most importantly, it backs our products, which are famous for being some of the best quality in the world.

The Advancing Manufacturing Taskforce will work with our local businesses and industry leaders to make sure that we are encouraging more opportunity and growth in Western Sydney. The Western Sydney International Nancy-Bird Walton Airport, the aerotropolis and Sydney Science Park will see Western Sydney at the forefront of emerging industries and science, technology, engineering and so much more. We will be a centre of excellence for research and education, and that's why it is so important to start the discussion now, to get the work going now, on how we support Australian industry.

Manufacturing in Australia has long faced difficult challenges. Our geographic location, a smaller population, scattered centres of population and transport difficulties have combined to limit the scope for manufacturing in Australia. In addition to higher labour costs and lower productivity, these have been critical factors affecting the competitiveness of manufacturing. But manufacturing has also survived many challenges over the past decade, including the global financial crisis, an extended period of unfavourably high exchange rates—with the Australian dollar trading at parity against the US dollar for about three years from 2010—the rapid rise of China as the world's factory and Australia's largest trading partner, the end of local automotive assembly operations in 2017, and the onset of digitalisation. Something else that local manufacturers often speak to me about as being a barrier to local success is the high cost of energy, which the Morrison government is currently working very hard on.

While manufacturing has faced these challenges, it's important to recognise how many Australians are showing their support for Australian manufacturing. Last week I met with the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology to talk about how we can support Australian-made products and Australian industry. In Western Sydney we have local businesses like Pandrol and business owners like Jeff Sinclair, who are so passionate about supporting manufacturing opportunities in Western Sydney. I met Jeff and his wife, Tracy, at their family business and we talked about the challenges facing Australian manufacturing and small and medium businesses. Jeff is the quintessential Australian who has worked hard all his life and put everything into his business. If we all knew that buying Australian products and supporting Australian-made meant keeping businesses like Jeff's afloat, I know we would always make this choice when we could.

Jeff and I met with Pierre, Pat and the team at Pandrol in Western Sydney, where again we saw wonderful Australian-made products. Pandrol define the industry standard across rail fastening systems. They've created rail infrastructure in more than 100 countries, with products and services that extend to designing, developing and manufacturing equipment, and constructing and maintaining railways. Every day, millions of Australians use our rail networks, and a lot of that is because of the types of products that Australian companies like Pandrol have on the market.

Pandrol, like many Australian manufacturers, work very closely with local contractors, and this means more local jobs. They support small engineering businesses—the one-man or one-woman shows like Jeff and Tracy have—as well as supporting many other local businesses across the community. That is part of the wonderful work that our local manufacturers do in our communities. I want to thank Jeff and the team at Pandrol for showing me around both their workplaces the other week.

In February, across Australia, nearly a million people were employed in the manufacturing sector. It makes up 7.1 per cent of total employment in Australia. In New South Wales we have nearly 200,000 people who work in manufacturing. It has been steadily declining over the last 20 years, with employment in the sector falling, and it's now experiencing some important rebalancing in its products, technology and supply chains in response to long-term local and global structural shifts. As I indicated earlier, some of the problems the industry has experienced include high energy costs and a high Australian dollar. Now the sector is experiencing some challenges, as we are across the whole of our economy, when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic. That is why it is so important now to be getting behind our Australian manufacturing industry.

In the last decade, consumers have sought more Australian food and beverages, which account for 27 per cent of manufacturing employment. Building materials, furniture and household items have also contributed. I want to encourage everyone in my community of Lindsay to keep backing manufacturing. You've said to me that this is what you want to do, that you're focusing more on quality over price. When it comes to advanced manufacturing, that is particularly where Australia has its competitive edge. If we invest in that focus on quality, and with Western Sydney airport coming on board very soon, we will have many opportunities for local people in our community to work closer to home. By investing in skills in advanced manufacturing we will be ensuring our kids are being trained in the jobs of the future, which is one of our greatest challenges at the moment in the advanced manufacturing industry. With all the energy and focus and collaboration that I know is going on in my community, I'm very confident that advanced manufacturing will be strong going into the future.