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

It has been a big week in the Australian Senate—a big week delivering real change for young people who want to get their first home. That's what this Senate has done—not slogans, not Insta posts, but real tax reform, the hard road for Australians. The pathway in manufacturing is just the same—delivering real change for workers, real change for industry and tax cuts. The people who stand in the way are just the same. We have the biggest pro-manufacturing package in Australian history, from the Albanese government. It's to build a future economy that makes Australia stronger and more resilient and includes our regions and outer suburbs meaningfully in our economy. It is delivering for Australia 7½ thousand more manufacturing firms since 2020 to 2022. Manufacturing exports are up by 43 per cent. Manufacturing investment is up by 35 per cent—real substance not posturing.

I did watch with interest what the alternative position is on these questions, and that is self-indulgence and a race away from the centre. The Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Senator McKenzie, as opposed to the Leader of the Nationals who's in the Senate, has spent her time not here in the Senate fighting for manufacturing jobs but in London at some bizarre offbeat—