Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank Senator Mulholland for her question about the National Reconstruction Fund's most recently announced project. Alpha HPA, in Central Queensland, is a fantastic development for Australia and a fantastic development for Gladstone and Central Queensland. High-purity alumina is a critical input in artificial intelligence data centre cooling systems, in semiconductors and in all sorts of pharmaceutical and battery supply chains around the world. And Gladstone, Queensland, will be the home of the world's largest high-purity alumina production facility because of the Albanese government's National Reconstruction Fund's investment in that facility, crowding in $225 million, which will open a factory that provides 420 construction jobs and then 120 permanent blue-collar, trades, production and engineering jobs, 80 of them in Gladstone in Central Queensland.

That is world-class manufacturing in a Central Queensland regional economy that the National Party in particular have left for dead. They have walked away from the key issues that will drive competitiveness and blue-collar jobs in regional areas. The local member, Mr Boyce—remember him?—has always opposed—

Well, he's doing a pretty good job of promoting himself. I watched his interview on Sky. We'll come back to him in a minute, I suppose.