Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Paterson. She, like many of us, knows the transition to cleaner, cheaper energy provides huge opportunities for Australian manufacturing and jobs. We know that Australian manufacturers have been under enormous pressure, with energy making up a big part of their production costs. Rising prices, especially of gas, have been something of concern to them, so getting access to cleaner, cheaper energy is very important. We've come to government with a big agenda to reinvigorate manufacturing, to rebuild our industrial base and to build regional employment and secure, well-paying jobs now and into the future.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency, ARENA, reported in June that in five of Australia's industrial regions—Pilbara and Kwinana in WA, Gladstone in Queensland and the Hunter and the Illawarra in New South Wales—the transition to renewables and cuts to emissions could result in nearly 380,000 jobs. So as part of that process we have planned to invest $100 million in a battery manufacturing precinct in regional Queensland, and our national battery strategy will tap into the interest and enthusiasm across the nation to be involved in onshore battery manufacture. If we get this right, we're advised we could create 34,000 jobs and generate $7.4 billion a year into the economy by 2030 and that's before we even get to the 10,000 new energy apprenticeships we want to deliver.

We've missed opportunities in clean energy manufacture before and we determined that shouldn't be repeated. Labor has plans to deliver a capacity for renewables manufacturing through our national reconstruction fund. We have set aside a billion for value adding in resources that will ensure we transform the minerals we are extracting into high-value products that the global economy will need in the future. Frankly, if we mine it here, we should make it here. We have also earmarked $3 billion for renewable and low-emissions technology in our Powering Australia sub fund in the NRF, targeting green steel, aluminium, clean energy component manufacturing, developing a domestic hydrogen industry and much more.

Our Rewiring the Nation plan has also been noticed by the owner of one of Europe's biggest renewable energy companies, which last month announced a $26 billion investment in the Australian renewable energy sector. Its CEO, Jose Manuel Entrecanales, explicitly stated that the election of our government was the reason for this investment, saying 'the Labor government policy to put $20 billion into the electricity transmission grid was essential to' their plan. We are determined to produce cheaper, cleaner energy and create the jobs required into the future.