Darren Chester Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education
2:29 pm
ESTER () (): My question is to the Prime Minister, and I refer to his answer in question time last Thursday where he said, 'Through the National Reconstruction Fund, we specifically set aside funding to support the forestry industry.' Prime Minister, how does the National Reconstruction Fund support timber workers and their families in the native hardwood timber industry?
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
Milton Dick Speaker
Order! Members on my left!
The member for Deakin is now warned.
Ed Husic Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science
2:30 pm
I thank the member for Gippsland for the question. Obviously we want to see manufacturing jobs grow, particularly in our regions. That's why in the National Reconstruction Fund—which we're happy to get a question on; it would have been great to get your support for it——we wanted in particular to support a value-add in resources and in ag. Within agriculture, we targeted forestry—
Opposition me mbers interjecting—
Ed Husic Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science
I'll get to it—patience, patience.
Opposition members interjecting—
Ed Husic Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science
and we did want to provide for value-adding in those products.
Ed Husic Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science
Forty seconds!
Milton Dick Speaker
The minister will pause. I'm going to be firm on this. The minister is directly answering the question and mentioning parts of the question. I'm going to hear from the member for Gippsland.
Darren Chester Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education
The point of order is on relevance. The question specifically referred to the native hardwood timber industry and the National Reconstruction Fund. I do invite the minister to be relevant to the issue of the native hardwood timber industry, which the Prime Minister indicated last week would benefit from the—
Ed Husic Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science
Again, I come to the point that there will be other products that may be manufactured or produced here in this country using different sources of timber, and we will—
Honourable members interjecting—
Milton Dick Speaker
Order! Members on my left! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.
Ed Husic Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science
We want to ensure that that manufacturing occurs onshore. It's a bit rich for them to suddenly come in here and ask what the National Reconstruction Fund will be able to do for regional communities when they never ever backed the fund. They were never prepared to back manufacturing and were not prepared to engage in this. From a variety of different sources—native hardwoods through to plantation—if there are products where we want to be able to value-add and produce those products here onshore, we want to support that.
Ed Husic Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science
It would have been nice to get their support. Instead, they want to be able to do what they always do: say no, do nothing and then criticise at the end.