I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that wars, trade disruption and supply shocks over the past decade have exposed vulnerabilities in global supply chains and reinforced the need for Australia to strengthen its sovereign industrial capability;

(2) recognises that Australia has the workers, resources, energy and ideas to make more here, add greater value to our resources and harness new technologies;

(3) commends the Government for its Future Made in Australia agenda, which is rebuilding Australia's industrial base, strengthening critical supply chains and supporting secure, well-paid jobs;

(4) acknowledges the Government's action to help safeguard nationally significant metal-processing facilities and their interconnected supply chains in the Hunter, Mount Isa, Port Pirie, Hobart, Whyalla and Gladstone;

(5) further notes that:

(a) the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) complements this work by making targeted investments in priority areas; and

(b) to date, the NRFC has announced 31 investments totalling $1.77 billion across housing, resources, biotech, artificial intelligence, food and beverage, manufacturing and quantum development; and

(6) affirms the Government's ongoing support to strengthen Australia's sovereign industrial capability, secure critical supply chains, crowd in investment and create well-paid, skilled jobs in the industries that will drive Australia's future prosperity.

I note that the member for Spence, who has just recently left this chamber, caused me to think about what really drove Australia's postwar economic miracle, and the three things which occurred since the founding of Elizabeth, in his electorate, which have in many ways destroyed that economic miracle: privatisation, economic rationalism and unfettered free trade. What we see in the community of Elizabeth is one of the best examples in South Australia. We had public housing built for workers to keep the cost of living down, to keep the pressure off wages and to attract international manufacturing, which is always looking for the best deal. It provided cheap public energy to keep the cost of living down for workers, keeping the pressure off wages and also keeping the pressure off manufacturing costs. And it provided high tariffs and the support of the car industry through tariffs.

What we've seen over the last 30 years of mainly conservative governments is privatisation writ large, economic rationalism gone crazy and unfettered free trade. In defence of free trade, I think nobody sensible could argue for an increase in tariffs. That is something which I think history has shown. Low tariffs have meant cheap imports, cheap consumer goods and cheap inputs into manufacturing, which is probably one of the biggest reasons that we've been able to keep inflation down over the last 30 years. So I think there is no argument over the sensibility of low tariffs. But what has failed this country—Elizabeth is the best example because Joe Hockey, the Liberal treasurer at the time, dared the car industry to walk out and shut the car industry down, and of course the car industry walked out and shut down. He dared it to walk out. Well, they saw that dare, and they left. What we have seen with unfettered free trade is that we have steelyards competing against foreign state owned steelyards and foreign state owned airlines. While there is this theory of a level playing field, it is not one in practice. The Future Made in Australia goes to the heart of levelling that playing field.

What we saw during COVID, the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East is that everything works until it doesn't. The moment a real strain was placed on those international supply chains, which Australia unfortunately is at the end of, the economy buckled. That is the reason, more than any other, that we are dealing with the inflation and the cost-of-living pressures that we have today. You need a government to be involved again. You need the government to use programs such as the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund. Of course, this fund is not a theory, and, in Forde, it is very much a reality. In Forde, we have a company called Gilmour Space, which is the only Australian company that is going for the literal space shot—to put satellites and rockets into low-earth orbit. It is a remarkable company, led by remarkable people. It was the recent investment of $75 million into Gilmour Space which allowed for the crowding in of other investors. It was when Gilmour Space was trying to raise some capital recently that the government came in through the National Reconstruction Fund to put in that $75 million. That gave other investors the confidence to move in and back this exciting Australian company.

It was put to me by somebody that the NRF is going to make money for us, as a government, and for the taxpayer. It is not only going to supercharge investment—crowd in investment—in other areas but it is also going to have a measurable economic return on that bottom line. Whether it is the NRF, whether it is backing steel in Whyalla, whether it's backing lead and zinc in Port Pirie, whether it's backing aluminium in Gladstone and Tomago, or whether it's backing copper in Townsville and in Mount Isa, this government is about getting back to those basic roots that made our economy strong in the first place.

We are supercharging a renewable energy system that is going to provide cheap power and energy and building public housing again for the first time for workers. This government is about getting back on track and getting Australia back to that economic miracle, and, to that, I commend the motion.

Is the motion seconded?

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

This motion discusses the Future Made in Australia plan and the agenda associated with it. While I commend the mover's interest in these areas, I do, however, have a few observations to make about the enlivenment of these goals as we stand with things right now. One of the biggest barriers in the cost of energy. Energy is expensive in Australia, and it is getting more expensive. Its affordability is incredibly important if you want to grow, make and manufacture things in my Gippsland region in a country like Australia. Australia used to lead the OECD in productivity.

We now languish in the late teens of the top 20, and you can ask why that is. One of the key reasons is energy affordability. We have surging energy costs, which are significantly hindering Australia's industrial productivity. They are dragging down multifactor productivity right across the broader economy. Manufacturing is energy intensive, collectively consuming over 52 billion kilowatt-hours annually. Escalating electricity and gas bills act as a direct tax on operational efficiency. Instead of allocating capital to automation, research and development or workforce upskilling, Australian businesses right now are forced to divert earned capital and vital resources just to keep their lights on.

Let me mention two points about recent data that highlights the significant financial pressure confronting the manufacturing sector. We have skyrocketing gas prices. Industrial users have seen domestic gas prices surge, while Australian manufacturers are paying 48 per cent more for gas than they did prior to global supply shocks. While this government can't control all international events, there is an important chronology of events here to take note of as well.

The other point I raise is around operational cutbacks. Research from the Australian Industry Group indicates that 62 per cent of manufacturers are suffering significant negative effects from the energy criss. Crucially, only 15 per cent are in a position right now to pass these costs onto consumers. If they do pass these costs onto consumers, that will have an impact on inflation, on the cost of living and a broader remit of challenges as well.

I recently visited Talum Windows in Inverloch, in my electorate of Monash. Their products are made by highly skilled local people to very high standards, and what they make is seriously impressive. In those high standards for Australia, we need to account for bushfire events, natural disasters, cyclonic winds and floods. The windows that they make are manufactured to a globally very high standard.

Right now, the Australian Anti-Dumping Commission is running an investigation into claims that aluminium windows and doors are being dumped or heavily subsidised below cost into the Australian market, putting local manufacturers like Talum at a real and unfair disadvantage. I want to note that the commission will deliver a draft response later this month. Clinton Skeoch, the CEO of the Australian Glass and Window Association, says this is about fairness. He said:

We are simply seeking a level playing field where unfairly subsidised and dumped products do not distort the market and undermine Australia's vibrant and highly competitive window-manufacturing industry.

It's an industry that directly employs more than 9,000 Australians and supports over 26,000 jobs in the broader supply chain. That support needs to be recognised in the context of the remarks that the federal government have made recently in relation to a strong aluminium industry. That is welcome, but that industry needs a strong local customer base as well. So, if the federal government are going to recognise the strategic value of producing aluminium in Australia, they can't stop that logic at just the raw material level. That support has got to reach downstream manufacturers who turn it into finished products, employ thousands of Australians and sustain local communities like mine in the Monash electorate. I will stand up for local jobs in Gippsland. I will stand up for manufacturing jobs, and so will the coalition.

I rise to support this motion and commend the government's Future Made in Australia agenda. To do that, I'd like to give you an example close to home for me, right in Bennelong. Macquarie Technology Group operates in the heart of my electorate in Macquarie Park and is a perfect example of what our Future Made in Australia agenda is actually delivering. The government's $200 million hybrid note investment in Macquarie Technology Group will keep critical digital infrastructure and the data of everyday Australians securely onshore. The company currently employs around 450 locals, and this investment is expected to create an additional 140 high-skilled jobs in digital infrastructure. It's an important business in my own community, and this investment keeps skilled jobs and sovereign capability and data here in Australia rather than overseas. It's a great example of what our entire FMIA agenda is built on.

Over the past decade, wars, trade disruption and supply shocks have exposed just how fragile supply chains really are. During the pandemic, we didn't have what we needed. When prices spike during global conflict, Australian families and businesses feel it directly. When supply chains seize up, it is our manufacturers, our workers and our families who wear the cost of this. We've learnt the hard lesson from that period. Countries are stronger when they can make more of what they need themselves. We have the workers, we have the resources, we have the energy and we have the ideas that the world is looking for. This government has turned all those strengths and all those ideas into jobs and investment. It's building supply chains that can withstand the next shock. We don't need to make everything here to be stronger, but we need to back the capabilities that matter most to our security and to our economy: renewable and reliable energy, critical minerals processing, green metals, defence industries and advanced digital technology.

The positive results of this policy extend all over Australia. More than 35,000 jobs are supported today at metals-processing facilities and across the supply chains connected to them in the Hunter, Gladstone, Mount Isa, Port Pirie, Hobart and Whyalla. At Tomago, the Albanese and Minns Labor governments are working together, investing $2½ billion to secure the future of the aluminium smelter. That investment protects more than 1,000 jobs onsite and another 5,000 across the Hunter. At Whyalla, the government has stepped in to maintain operations and keep sovereign steel-making capability in Australian hands.

None of this happens by accident. It happens because this government chooses to back Australian industry rather than dare them to go offshore just like the Liberals and Nationals did with our car-making industry a decade or so ago. At the centre of this choice is the National Reconstruction Fund and $15 billion. To date, it has announced 31 investments totalling nearly $2 billion across resources, biotech, artificial intelligence, food and beverage manufacturing, housing and quantum development. Macquarie Technology Group is one of them. Energy policy sits at the heart of all of this. Wind, solar, storage and gas are all Australian assets, and they should work for Australians first. We've just announced another policy in this space with the domestic gas reservation.

We just need to compare that record to the alternative on offer. Under the coalition, energy was an afterthought. They had 22 policies and didn't land one. Four gigawatts left the electricity system, and only one gigawatt came in. Usually, when energy leaves the system, you need to have a plan to replace it, right, because we're only going to use more and more energy as we electrify. But the coalition had no plan. Twenty-four out of the nation's 28 coal fired power stations announced their closure on their watch, and there was not a single plan to replace that capacity.

Now they are promising to scrap Rewiring the Nation and to abolish the National Reconstruction Fund. Their alternative is a fantasy. Nuclear power is the slowest and most expensive form of energy available to us today. If you think the coalition are bad, One Nation offer no better answer. They claim to speak for working people whilst campaigning against the industries those workers depend on. Labor fights to keep industry open, and we want to keep businesses like Macquarie Technology Group in Bennelong firing and delivering for our people.

I thank the member for Forde for this motion. Last month, I released a report called Clean Power: securing WA's future prosperity. It was built on a year of work, conversations with more than 50 industry leaders and energy experts, and survey responses from 2,300 Western Australians. WA is at a fork in the road. One path keeps us doing what we've always done—digging and shipping, and propping up fossil fuel dependency for as long as it lasts. The other path decarbonises our economy, diversifies what we export and captures more of that value here at home. Trying to do both comes at a cost.

WA has to decide whether its future is as a petro state or an electro state. I think the answer is obvious. WA has the sun, the wind, the land and the minerals to be an electro state powerhouse. Green iron alone could grow from a $4 billion export industry today to as much as a $170 billion industry by 2050, supporting close to 20,000 new jobs. We have active projects across eight clean export industries already.

There's urgency here, too. WA's mining, transport and agricultural sectors are between 67 and 98 per cent dependent on imported diesel. When the 2026 Iran war sent oil prices spiking, that dependence stopped being a theoretical risk and became a live one. WA is the only state with rising domestic emissions, with downstream emissions from our fossil fuel exports running at roughly 13 times our domestic footprint. What we do in WA doesn't stay in WA. It shapes global emissions outcomes as much as it shapes our own economy.

There was broad agreement from the people I talked to across WA. Business and community are ready to move towards a prosperous future built on sun and wind. They can see the opportunity. What's missing is a strong federal and state government commitment to move at the same pace. The federal government's Future Made in Australia agenda has been a valuable start, but there is much more to do, and it needs to be done much faster.

My report identifies eight broad policy priorities. Today I want to touch on just one: de-risking clean industry investment. Existing capital is not getting to the projects and the stages where it's most needed, including first-of-a-kind technologies and development-stage funding.

WA's pipeline of clean energy projects is largely at the pilot and proposal stage. Project proponents cite, as their primary barrier to progress, the demand certainty or offtake agreements needed to reach financial close. Without strong financial commitments or forward momentum in the next six to 12 months, WA risks losing these projects entirely to other countries with more favourable conditions.

Supply-side funding already exists through a suite of government investment funds like the National Reconstruction Fund, which the member has highlighted; the Clean Energy Finance Corporation; and tailored funds like the Green Iron Investment Fund. These bodies have been critical to Australia's clean energy transition so far, But WA's clean industry proponents consistently report struggling to secure finance in the stage past seed capital but before FID. Projects making the leap from demonstration to commercial deployment report being unable to obtain federal equity investments or concessional loans because the risk is judged to be too high. The billions already allocated need to reach projects earlier and accept the higher risk that first-of-a-kind projects entail. The goal must be to crowd in and de-risk private investment, not replace it.

Proponents have asked for concessional finance and equity to arrive one to three years before FID, rather than at FID. Yet many of the government investments have return thresholds that preclude this level of risk taking. This is partly why the NRF has only allocated about $2.5 billion of its $15 billion in funds. Not every project supported by government will succeed. If it did, government is likely to be crowding out private investment instead of crowding it in. To establish new industries, it's necessary for the government to adopt a higher risk threshold. Programs like the NRF show government understands this direction.

What the motion should really be about is pace. WA doesn't need more announcements. It needs the settings that let private capital move with confidence, sovereign investment vehicles willing to take on early-stage risk, and a government prepared to back the projects that get us from good idea to final investment decision. The opportunity in front of WA won't wait for the next term of government. Business and the community are ready, and it's time government matched them.

I want to thank the member for Forde for moving this motion and for his commitment to Australian jobs and Australian industry. Few areas of our economy make the choices and direction of governments clearer than industry and manufacturing, and on that choice the contrast between this government and those opposite could not be clearer. Wars, trade disruption and global supply shocks have taught us a hard lesson: when supply chains are fragile, Australians pay the price. We are seeing it with global conflict sending prices soaring, and we see it in businesses carrying the cost when international supply chains seize up.

Australia has enormous strengths to build on: our workers, our resources, our energy and our ideas. The Future Made in Australia agenda is about turning those strengths into Australian jobs, investments and stronger, more resilient supply chains. Rebuilding and strengthening an industrial base is not easy, and it requires a government willing to back Australian ingenuity and Australian workers. That is what this government is doing, because we know that countries are stronger when they have the capacity to make more of what they need themselves. Through the Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme, the National Reconstruction Fund and targeted Future Made in Australia investments, including in critical minerals, green metals and our industrial base, we are strengthening Australia's economic resilience and sovereign capability. We are making sure our resources, energy, skills and ideas create more value here at home. We are strengthening supply chains, bringing public and private investment, supporting jobs in our industrial heartlands and building the industries Australia will rely on for decades to come. It is about having the capability to shape our own future.

My community was ground zero for what I often describe as more than just neglect from the Liberal Party; it was economic vandalism, a Liberal myopia that pushed Australia's automotive industry out of our country. The story of what happened to Australian manufacturing is ultimately a story about choices. Let's put those choices into context.

Around the time Joe Hockey was smoking cigars under the Abbott government, which budgeted the demise of our automotive industry and dared industry to leave, estimated per capita assistance to the automotive industry in Australia was US$17.80—an investment in a sector that was critical to our industrial base about the price of a footy ticket at the time. Now compare that with other OECD countries. Germany provided US$90.37 per person. Canada provided US$96.39, France provided US$147.38 and the United States provided US$264.82 per person, nearly 15 times Australia's level of assistance. These were countries that understood something fundamental. If you want an industrial economy, you have to back your workers. You have to back your supply chains and the skills that allow a country to make things for itself.

Those opposite looked at global industry assistance and thought they could be more royal than the Queen. The ideological obsession with outsourcing Australian ingenuity meant communities like mine paid the price. It meant destroying thousands of local, Australian manufacturing jobs in my community—jobs that families relied on and communities in my electorate were built around. My community paid the price and Australia paid the price, because when you lose industrial capability you don't simply flick a switch and get it back. You lose the skilled workers, you lose the supply chains and businesses that grow around those industries, you lose institutional knowledge built up over generations and you lose the sovereign capability that comes from being able to make the things our country needs.

That is the inheritance we received from those opposite, but it's not a future that we accept. We are not prepared to accept the future where countries that invest in the industrial base have the factories, the workers, the technology and the sovereign capability while Australia simply imports the finished product. We believe local industry should have the opportunity to compete, to grow and to innovate here. We believe in backing Australian made and the workers making things in Australia. It means skills retained here, supply chains strengthened here, businesses growing here and capability here. That is what we stand for.

The abysmal record of those opposite shows what happens when governments choose not to. After they destroyed industry, they sat on their hands for nearly a decade and talked Australia down. When it comes to choice and direction, we choose Australian manufacturing, Australian workers and Australian capability. Under the Albanese Labor government, our direction is also clear: a future made in Australia.

I find this motion baffling; I really do. I cannot sit here and listen to this Albanese Labor government congratulate itself on its Future Made in Australia agenda when the reality on the ground tells a very different story. The irony of this motion is that Mr Holzberger, who grew up in Broken Hill and should understand this, is self-congratulating his government for a future made in Australia while at the very same time there is a live press conference in Whyalla announcing hundreds of redundancies in the steelworks. The Whyalla blast furnace has officially been turned off for good today.

I want to take everyone back through the last 10 years of the Whyalla steelworks, and I want everyone from Labor and the Greens to listen. Eventually, reality catches up with ideology. In 2016, Arrium, the owner of the steelworks, was placed into administration. KordaMentha were appointed administrators. A sale process followed, and in June 2017 KordaMentha announced a preferred bidder—a Korean consortium backed by POSCO. At the eleventh hour, the state Labor government and then treasurer Tom Koutsantonis intervened. The deal with POSCO fell over, and GFG Alliance, led by Sanjeev Gupta, ultimately acquired the steelworks. Given where we are today, I think it's entirely reasonable to ask: what would Whyalla look like if POSCO had completed that transaction?

GFG Alliance, led by Sanjeev Gupta, buy the steelworks, and we all know what happens next. Years of underinvestment, alleged corruption, financial problems and mounting debt follow. Eventually, in February 2025, the state Labor government pushed special legislation that put the steelworks into administration. Nobody should defend GFG's record.

While the steelworks was struggling, the South Australian Labor government was pursuing another vision: hydrogen. In 2022, the Labor government committed $593 million to its Hydrogen Jobs Plan, but there was a problem: the economics didn't stack up, and they never did. Private investments in large-scale green hydrogen projects were being abandoned around the world, but not by the South Australian Labor government who were left carrying the baby. Then came the great cover up. In February 2025, the government announced it was putting GFG steelworks into administration and, at the very same time, the government quietly shelved its $600 million hydrogen plan.

This is all smoke and mirrors. The Premier's explanation was essentially this question: why build a hydrogen plant if there is nobody to buy the hydrogen? Perhaps it should have been asked before hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money was committed. For years, the government sold a vision of green hydrogen, green steel—a world-leading industrial transformation. But when, the economics caught up, the project was shelved. That is the problem I have with the approach to Whyalla. There is too much focus on crafting the narrative and not enough focus on fixing the fundamentals. Eventually reality catches up with ideology. The Commonwealth and state governments have now committed billions more to support the steelworks, but government support alone cannot make an uncompetitive business competitive.

What if last year we had spent $593 million not on the Hydrogen Jobs Plan—which didn't deliver one electron, by the way—but on the fundamentals? What if, instead of betting so heavily on a hydrogen future that the private sector wasn't prepared to finance, we'd invested in reliable energy infrastructure? What if we'd put downward pressure on the cost of gas and electricity? Where would Whyalla be today? We will never know, but we do know South Australia has the highest industrial energy cost in the developed world, and energy is one of the biggest costs facing the steelworks.

My objective is straightforward. I want Whyalla to make steel for the next 50 years. I want good, well-paid jobs in Whyalla. I want a sovereign steel-making capability in South Australia. I want taxpayer money used to build a sustainable business not continually prop up an unsustainable one. The lesson for the next 10 years is clear: stop chasing the next announcement, stop trying to win the next headline and get the fundamentals right: reliable energy, competitive energy, investment, productivity and a commercially viable steelworks. Eventually reality catches up with ideology, and the people of Whyalla deserve a government that deals with reality.

Australia has everything we need to make more things here at home. We have the resources. We have the energy. We have the workers, the skills and the ideas. And we have an enormous opportunity to take those Australian strengths and turn them into Australian jobs, Australian investment and Australian industries. That is the ambition behind the Albanese Labor government's Future Made in Australia agenda.

My electorate of Bonner has a proud industrial base. At Lytton, we have the Ampol refinery, one of only two remaining refineries in Australia, employing almost a thousand people onsite and playing an incredibly important role in our national fuel security. I've been proud to welcome the Prime Minister; Treasurer, Jim Chalmers; and Minister for Climate Change, Energy, Chris Bowen, to the refinery to meet the workers and talk about the importance of the industry we have today and the opportunities ahead.

Ampol is a great example of what A Future Made in Australia is all about. We are backing the industrial capability of Australia that we already have, while investing in what it can become. Just down the road at GrainCorp you can see what that future could be if were to come together with Ampol. Australian canola, used cooking oil and tallow can become Australian-made renewable fuels. That means taking what we grow and produce here, adding value and creating the manufacturing jobs and industries of the future. Labor is backing that opportunity, including through the $1.1 billion Cleaner Fuels Program, to help unlock private investment in Australian low-carbon liquid fuel production. That is Future Made in Australia in action: government and industry working together to take an Australian strength and turn it into the next Australian industry.

You don't need to be one of Australia's biggest companies to be part of A Future Made in Australia. Recently I visited the new home of QFill, in Wakerley in my electorate. Jozsef, Annamaria and Kaldor showed me through their warehouse as they prepare to launch their aerosol manufacturing operations. Right now they're preparing the space, and before long it will be buzzing with staff, equipment and opportunity—opportunity for a small business to grow and also the opportunity for more local jobs. That is also an opportunity for A Future Made in Australia.

A Future Made in Australia is also about backing industry at every level. It means securing the major industrial facilities that employ thousands of Australians and support entire supply chains. But it also means backing the businesses with an idea, an opportunity to grow, and the ambition to make something here. We need both.

That is exactly why the government established the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, to invest in capability and help turn Australian ideas into Australian industries. Already the fund has announced 31 investments worth almost $1.77 billion across resources, biotech, AI, food and beverage, manufacturing, housing and quantum development.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12:01 to 12:13

Already the fund has announced 31 investments worth $1.77 billion across resources, biotech, AI, food and beverage manufacturing, housing and quantum development.

When we talk about a future made in Australia, we also need to talk about who gets to be part of that future. When I visited Give Industries recently with Minister Amanda Rishworth, I met two electricians, Alisha and Mary, who have been part of the She Means program supporting women in male-dominated industries, because the industries that will build Australia's future will need electricians, builders, technicians, engineers and skilled workers, and there is absolutely no reason why those careers should not be an option for every woman and girl in Bonner.

But getting women through the door is only half the job. We need workplaces where women can stay, succeed and lead. That is why our government is investing $4 million to expand the She Means program from 30 small businesses to 120 across Australia. Round 2 is now open for the She Means program, including for businesses in ICT, financial services, energy and trades. You can't be what you can't see, and I want girls in Bonner to grow up to be like Alisha and Mary and know there is absolutely no limit to where their careers can take them.

Labor is backing a future made in Australia, and I'm proud to be part of it.

It's always pleasing to speak to one of the member for Forde's private members' business motions. He's a very enthusiastic member. A lot of his content is quite misguided, but I love his enthusiasm. The manufacturing industry and heavy industry in this country are dying, and that's directly due to the Albanese Labor government's policies. To have a look at productivity, if you look at the front page of the Aus this morning, they've said that productivity in this country has fallen through the floor. As a matter of fact, it's fallen to the worst situation in the history of productivity information. That goes right back to the 1960s. This is directly proportional to Labor's policies—their high tax, their overtax, their industrial relations mess and their red tape.

Because of the Albanese Labor government's failed policies, they've had to bail out heavy industry. In the Hunter, they bailed out Tomago Aluminium to the tune of $1.275 billion; in Mount Isa in Queensland, Glencore got $300 million; in Port Pirie, South Australia, Nyrstar got $57.5 million; in Hobart, Tasmania, Nyrstar got $57.5 million; in Whyalla, South Australia, the steelworks got $1.1 billion; in Gladstone in Queensland, the Boyne aluminium smelter has been bailed out the tune of $1 billion. That's a total bailout from the Albanese Labor government of $3.7 billion and change.

The coalition said a long time ago that we need a Senate inquiry into the heavy metals manufacturing industry in Australia. The Albanese Labor government said, 'No, we're not going to do that.' We couldn't believe that, because we knew that they were facing headwinds. So why wait till the very last second and then have to bail them out? The worst thing about this is it's going to happen again because the Albanese Labor government has brought in the safeguard mechanism. That's what they call it, but let's call it what it really is, carbon tax 2.0.

Those opposite, like the one making a hell of a racket—they're going to have to pay fines for this, and they're going to have offsets. This is going to add expense to the business that they can't afford. This will once again drive more manufacturing and more industry offshore.

Labor's Future Made in Australia is nothing more than a farce. We have the resources and we have the workforce in this country, but they don't want to use them. Industry is leaving this country in droves. Have a look at the NVES, the electric vehicle standards. That is another attack on manufacturing and industry. The very simple Rangers, Land Cruisers and Isuzus are then being taxed out of existence, but we have to use those in the manufacturing industry. We can't use the electric cars because they can't carry the weight, they can't tow the load and they can't cover the distance. Manufacturing is leaving Australia because of the high energy costs. The reckless race to renewables is simply not working. Gas is too expensive in this country. We've seen a 40 per cent increase in electricity. That's not sustainable to industry. We need reliable, affordable energy that's available 24/7. The net zero fantasy has to stop.

Australia is also not being seen as a stable political country. We've got a prime minister who simply can't be trusted. He promised on 97 occasions that power was going to be $275 cheaper, and that's simply not the case. Then he introduced capital gains tax changes, negative gearing changes and changes to trusts. All those things were never taken to the election, so this prime minister can't be trusted. We're considered a politically unstable country, and that's why our manufacturing and heavy industry is moving offshore. (Time expired)

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.