Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first thing I did after being appointed the shadow assistant minister for infrastructure was visit the Albemarle lithium plant at Kemerton in my electorate. I did so alongside the shadow minister for industry and sovereign capability, Andrew Hastie. Two hundred and fifty local people have been thrown out of jobs with the closure of that plant. The company has cited operating costs as the reason for that. Of course, we all know that operating costs are primarily driven by energy costs in heavy industry. This is firsthand evidence in my electorate—ground zero, if you like—of Labor's net zero ideology killing Australian jobs and our manufacturing capability.

This is the result of energy prices going up by some 40 per cent in the four years since the Albanese government was elected. Prices dropped by some 10 per cent when the now leader of the opposition, Angus Taylor, was the Minister for Energy in this country. Energy prices are up 40 per cent, and businesses are the canary in the coal mine because there is no subsidy, no protection, from energy prices for Aussie businesses—small and family businesses, in particular, like those that depend on large employers like the Albemarle lithium plant for work, whether from contracts, servicing, technicians and the like, right through to the cafes, hairdressers and local businesses that depend on manufacturing activity in Australia for a vibrant and prosperous economy that allows us to pay for our most vulnerable.

Instead of a future made in Australia, we're seeing Aussie jobs consigned to history and those very same jobs exported to places like China. The coalition believe in lower energy prices because that is what underpins a healthy economy in which private businesses have the capacity to invest, to take risks, to employ, to do what they do well and to drive this country forward. In a dangerous and uncertain world, we want to see more sovereign capability here in Australia, and that means that we need more than words. We need more than slogans. The so-called Future Made in Australia is currently consigning Aussie jobs to history. There are 250 local families in my electorate that understand more than ever that in this cost-of-living crisis there is nothing worse than losing your job and the security that it provides to your family.