Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to begin my contribution tonight by acknowledging the very real economic impact that COVID-19 has had on regional Queensland, particularly on Far North Queensland, where tourism is a major direct and indirect employer. A crisis of this sort isn't actually new for Cairns but it will certainly be the worst. That's what I said in February when I stood up in Cairns and called for support from the Morrison government. I said that this crisis would hit Cairns first and it would hit Cairns worst.

Many locals share stories about the pilots' strike in 1989 and the impact that had on the economy. After the GFC, Cairns was one of the last places to recover. Today we have learned that Qantas will cut jobs in Cairns, deciding to outsource baggage handlers at Jetstar and possibly Qantas as well. Luckily, because we have kept Queensland safe and open, we do have tourists coming from all over Queensland, and the flights between Brisbane and Cairns remain one of the busiest routes. The impact of this outbreak, though, has been devastating. The crisis has renewed calls for Far North Queensland to diversify its economy by building on our inherent strengths. It also raises questions about the lack of federal leadership over the last seven years to implement a plan to do just this—to crisis-proof Far North Queensland.

COVID has also taught Queenslanders the very hard lesson that we need to build and make more things at home. We can't rely on traditional supply chains anymore, and products that are built cheaply overseas become even more costly during a crisis because they don’t support local jobs. I know that manufacturing matters to regional Queensland and that's why I launched a campaign to bring manufacturing back home and to call on the Morrison government to invest in manufacturing and deliver a local jobs plan. I thank each and every single Queenslander who has supported this campaign so far. This is what our regions are crying out for right now.

We already build trains and maintain ships in Queensland. We are uniquely geographically placed to do this and even more. We make pallets and fabricate steel and we can even turn our world-class famous gin into hand sanitiser or produce PPE. We can manufacture more advanced technologies as well and meet our medical needs of the future in regional Queensland. Throughout this campaign I have been speaking to manufacturing businesses across North Queensland. They say to me: 'We can do this. We can manufacture what we need right here. But we haven't had the support. We haven't had the investment in skills. We need certainty from this government about energy policy so we can plan for the future and bring energy costs down.'

For seven years this Liberal-National government has turned its back on regional manufacturers. On Scott Morrison's watch, Australia ranks last in the manufacturing self-sufficiency ratings compared to developed economies.

For the LNP, manufacturing is just a buzzword. They talk about it but they never support it. They challenged Australia's car manufacturers to leave Australia and they let the industry die on their watch. The LNP cut $3 billion from TAFE and haven't invested in the skills that manufacturers need to survive. Recent reports show the Prime Minister himself had to tell his own MPs to get out of their comfort zone to support manufacturing. We know that they can't and we know that they won't, because the Liberal-National coalition slash and cut and wreck. They spend more time fighting for their own jobs than fighting for yours.

This week, when jobs are being lost in regional Queensland, our so-called regional representatives in the National Party are fighting each other again. They're jockeying for leadership positions again when people are losing their jobs in regional Queensland. Labor builds and Labor fights for jobs. Queenslanders will never forget that it was the LNP that sent trains to be built in India and it was Annastacia Palaszczuk and the Queensland Labor government that brought them back to Maryborough. We need to bring manufacturing back home.