SUBJECTS: Manufacturing and Energy policy; Labor’s Buy Australian Plan; NASA and Australian Rover mission; Government’s inaction on climate change; Prime Minister's trip to Glasgow; Angus Taylor; IBAC inquiry; branch-stacking in the Victorian Liberal Party; National Anti-Corruption Commission; cloud remains over Government ministers.
 
CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY: Well thanks for coming, everyone. It’s great to welcome Anthony Albanese, the Leader of the Opposition, and Ed Husic, the Shadow Minister for Industry, to Smithfield. Smithfield-Wetherill Park is the largest industrial estate in the southern hemisphere. It’s my honour to represent that in the Federal Parliament, to represent so many great businesses which create so many jobs for residents in Western Sydney and create such good products which are used right across Australia and exported around the world. But businesses, of course, have been dealing with rising energy costs under this Government. And today, after eight years in government, three prime ministers, 21 energy policies, the Government is having a meeting with themselves to try and find a policy. Weeks before one of the most important climate change conferences ever, the Government is getting around to having a meeting with itself to try and find a policy. Well, businesses know that the key for their competitiveness going forward is energy prices. And the key for energy prices coming down is good climate and energy policy. And this Government’s had 21 goes and wants us to think that their 22nd attempt will be the one where they get it right. We in the Opposition know that the world’s climate emergency is Australia’s jobs opportunity. We can be creating jobs here in Australia, putting downward pressure on energy prices for wonderful manufacturers like here at G.James, which makes wonderful glass products, which we’ve seen today, and is involved in producing aluminium as well, aluminium which will be a very important part of the renewable economy, providing the support for solar and wind installations across our country. But also, all manufacturers need good energy policy. Here at G.James they’ve installed many solar panels, which has seen them take $250,000 off their energy prices every year - $250,000 every year off their energy bills, which is a very big contribution, of course, to their ongoing costs. But, of course, we have been announcing a range of policies, both in climate and energy and in procurement, a big one on the weekend from Anthony, all designed to support Australian manufacturing, Australian business, Australian industry. So I’m going to invite Anthony and again welcome him to my electorate, my community, and then Ed, and then we’ll take your questions.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thanks very much Chris. And it's great to be back in Australia's largest industrial estate, here in Western Sydney, with Chris Bowen and Ed Husic. I want to pay tribute, as well, to the work that Ed's done in developing our Buy Australian Plan that we launched on Saturday. And I want to thank you, Michael, for the very warm welcome here to G.James. This is a factory that is employing Australians with good quality jobs producing high-value Australian products, powered by renewable energy on the roof here that is saving this company $250,000 each and every year. The fact is that we need to grow Australian manufacturing. One of the things that we've seen during the pandemic is the strength of Australian society. Australians making sacrifices each and every day to keep each other safe. But we've also seen some of the weakness in the Australian economy, the lack of resilience which is there because of the decline in manufacturing that this Government has presided over. One way that we can fix that is to buy Australian, to have a Future Made in Australia. And our 10-point plan launched on Saturday will do just that, assisting companies like this one to continue to grow and expand, to get those government contracts, to make sure that every Australian dollar makes a difference for Australian jobs. Just like people in this community and in communities right around Australia, say ‘Buy local, think global’, we should have that same approach towards procurement from Australian governments, whether they be our federal, state or local governments. But here at this factory, it shows what can be done. We can be the best in the world. We can produce the best quality manufactured products in the world. We can value add. We can compete and continue to grow, particularly in our suburbs and in our regions. And that is what our Buy Australian Plan is about, supporting Australian jobs.
 
Can I make a comment as well, about the Government's announcement today about a deal with NASA to incorporate an Australian rover on a future mission. It's great that Australia is being involved in space. There is opportunity for us. But let's save this planet first. And there's a conference in Glasgow in a couple of weeks’ time that is very important for that. Now, of course the Prime Minister should be at the most important global meeting on climate change that has occurred this century. And equally obvious, though, is that a few days in Scotland won't undo the damage that's been done by the denial and delay over the last decade from the Coalition Government. Now, I can't decide whether Scott Morrison should go to this conference and I can't decide what Barnaby Joyce will allow Scott Morrison to say. But I'll say this, we should be putting Australia's interests first. Factories like this one, powered by renewables, lowering their costs of production, is an example that can be replicated right around the country. We have an opportunity to be a renewable energy superpower for the world. At the moment, that opportunity is being lost. Whenever you look at the great challenges that this Government faces, it's characterised by a common theme. They always act too little and too late. And as a result, the cost for the Australian economy and the loss of Australian jobs is there for all to see. So whether it's the gaining of vaccine supply, or whether it's action on climate change, this Government always waits until there's an absolute crisis before it acts. And as a result, other countries get ahead of us. Other countries have an advantage over Australia's position. What we need is a prime minister in this country who is prepared to lead, who's prepared to lead debate, not have internal discussions about things that are obvious. The debate on climate change has moved way past this Government. You have every business, the National Farmers’ Federation, every state and territory government. And here they're playing catch up with closed door meetings, with absurd interviews from government ministers, where they won't even say whether they support net zero emissions by 2050 or not, and Cabinet ministers doing interviews where they pretend they're not part of the Government, where they pretend they're not part of the Coalition Government, including the Deputy Prime Minister on the ABC 7.30 program last night. You’d think he was a commentator. He’s the Deputy Prime Minister of the country and with that comes responsibility. That's a responsibility that he's not taking up and fulfilling at the moment. I'd ask Ed to make some comments as well about our Buy Australia Plan.
 
ED HUSIC, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION: Thanks, Anthony and Chris. And if I can, just from the beginning, say thank you, Michael, to you and the team here at G.James. Not just for being so warm and welcome and showing us around. But importantly too, the faith you've shown in manufacturing. This is a place that provides secure, good jobs. Two hundred people get pay packets out of here to put food on the table for Western Sydney families. It's why we're so focused on manufacturing, in part because it delivers these full-time jobs. But it's also, through the course of the pandemic, been a moment for us, particularly in Labor, to think about how we rebuild the economy, regear the economy, see what we can do in manufacturing and reduce our dependence on global supply chains. We got a lot of know-how and talent in this country, we have to have the faith to back it up. That's why, for example, we've looked at things like and announced the National Reconstruction Fund to target a number of industries to see growth there. And on the weekend, we released the next chapter of our broader thinking about how to strengthen the economy and grow jobs into the future through our Buy Australian Plan that focuses on the $190 billion that the Federal Government has spent in the last three years. How do we wring the value out of every single taxpayer dollar to boost local industry, boost jobs. And so we've released a 10-point plan that will see, across a range of areas, us focused on not only just having the work done in the national reconstruction plan, but making sure that the every post we will pass we mark it with a commitment to jobs, jobs and jobs, and using government procurement that is directed to firms like this, and others, to be able to open the door for government contracts and to ensure that we can maximise every taxpayer dollar on Australian soil. Now, this doesn't mean a huge new spending commitment, it means using the existing spending smarter, buying local, driving those decisions. And what we want to see is a commitment to manufacturing in this country, in every opportunity taken wherever it exists. We think that's possible. And the thing is about this move is, and if I can end on this point, this is a signal about faith in our own people. We have had to, from the very first point at which someone stepped on this country, be it First Nations or the people that have come thereafter, we've had to think on our feet, we've had to deal with a tough environment. Our ideas have gotten us through. But we've had a Government, at a federal level, lose faith and signal a lack of faith in our know-how whenever they send those contracts offshore, whenever state governments get trains and ferries built offshore. When they deny us the chance to apply our minds, our brains, our know-how, our talent, they are denying this country the chance to be more self-sufficient, to create jobs, to strengthen local industry. Labor says we should do more of that. But importantly, we must do that. And we've got to back our local people. We've got to back our local ideas. We can believe in our know-how and we can see good results as a result of that investment.
 
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
 
ALBANESE: Net zero by 2050 is a no brainer. And what we have is a bit of a pantomine from the Government about whether they'll get there or not. I'm sure they'll get there. But what are they doing about their 2030 target of 26 to 28 per cent that they're not even going to meet? What are they doing about future plans? Here we have circumstance whereby the reduction in emissions in this country is primarily due to two things: the 2020 Renewable Energy Target by 2020 that they opposed, that they fought at every opportunity, and the changes to land clearing by state governments that they opposed as well. So, just before the 2007 election, we had the Howard Government decide that they'd ratified the Kyoto Protocol. They decided that they'd support an emissions trading scheme. And once that election was passed, they changed their position back to the old denial and delay. What I'd be interested in is the modelling from this Government in how much that denial and delay has cost. Because it's cost Australian jobs and it's cost our Australian economy. And I'd ask Chris to make some remarks.
 
BOWEN: Thanks, Albo. Absolutely, the Government has been a mess on net zero. If today they finally get to net zero by 2050, they have three tests: commit to net zero by 2050, absolutely, commit to legislate it as Labor has committed to do in office and increase the medium-term target of 26 to 28 per cent, which is Tony Abbott's target, who's a climate change denier, and was designed to match the United States and the United States has left Australia in its wake. Anything less than meeting those tests – 2050, legislate it and increasing medium-term target - will just be another cop out at COP.
 
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
 
ALBANESE: Well, Angus Taylor has been someone who is going around like Chicken Little saying that the sky would fall with net zero emissions by 2050. You can't run a campaign for day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, a scare campaign, and then at the last minute go, ‘Oh, I just noticed that the whole world has moved past us, that we're losing the advantage that we had’. We see from this factory here, $250,000 saved because they have renewable energy here. An annual saving. That can be replicated throughout the economy. We have resources like lithium, copper, nickel, that will be in massive demand and part of our Future Made in Australia plan is why aren't we making batteries here? Why aren't we making solar panels, more of them, here? Why aren't we making wind turbines here? We have every natural resource that goes into the products that will be in demand in the future. And what we've done is sat back, from people like Angus Taylor, who has no credibility, no credibility on these issues, be it energy or on industry that he's now in charge of. The truth is that it will take a Labor government, a Labor government prepared to shape the future, prepared to take up the opportunities that are there to create jobs, and to really drive Australia forward. I might see if Ed wants to comment?
 
HUSIC: Absolutely. I think, you know, with Angus, this is a bloke who had trouble producing an energy policy and now he's heading up energy policy. I mean, he's had enough trouble riding one horse, let alone two. And as Anthony's pointed out, we have a lot of opportunities. This is one of the things that's been raised about Australia is that we don't do enough value add in resources. Now, we ship off a lot of the resources that the rest of the country value adds and turns into products that can help in their own nations, particularly with respect to batteries. And we don't do enough here on shore. And Angus Tyler is not going to focus on that. These are big issues requiring a lot of thought and a lot of follow-through, and we haven't seen that out of Angus Taylor whatsoever. And he will be divided between what he's doing on energy, which isn't much, an industry, which it’s doubtful he’ll do much. But we miss opportunity as a result. And it really is a time, coming out of the pandemic that we think about doing things differently, more value add, more in terms of jobs, opening up opportunity, be it on batteries, be it on the other renewable technology, or even possibly the prospect of manufacturing EV onshore, electric vehicles onshore, which a lot of other countries are getting their heads around and are starting to move on. But again, this Government won't do it. They say it's too hard for them to do. And just bear this in mind, they've dedicated $1.5 billion in their modern manufacturing initiative over four years covering six different areas. And that's all they've committed. Yet at the same time, through their Jobkeeper program, we can see, under that program, $13 billion dollars go to firms with rising revenues. That is a lost opportunity to invest in Australian manufacturing. And when you contrast their failures on JobKeeper and their failures to really do better on modern manufacturing, that speaks volumes about the fact that this Government overall hasn't really cared about industry, has rotated industry ministers and now put in a minister who's got divided attention and won't really commit to the job.
 
ALBANESE: Could I just add one point for Angus Taylor to think about, which is that Tritium is a company in southeast Queensland. It is producing the fastest electric vehicle charging stations in the world, with Australian science and innovation, Australian resources, made by Australian labour, on site in Queensland. And what we have from Angus Taylor, with regard to electric vehicle charging stations that are the fastest in the world being exported to North America and Europe, is this Government says that electric vehicles would destroy the weekend. That's the alternative here. Are you going to believe someone, who is now an Industry Minister and an Energy Minister, who was a part of that scare campaign with the Morison Government during the last campaign? This guy speaks about embracing technology while he trashes it. When he trashes Australian technology, what he's really doing is trashing Australian jobs.
 
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
 
ALBANESE: Look, I think the Victorian Liberal Party have a lot to answer for. They have Michael Sukkar sitting around the Cabinet table. They could talk to Kevin Andrews about branch stacking. Kevin Andrews, the former member, in terms of former candidate, he's not a candidate this time around. He's been stacked out with the branch-stacking that's occurred in Victoria. And what you have a look at is this contrast. In the Victorian Liberal Party, you have had mass stacking. You've had Michael Sukkar employing people, including people in other offices, and a whole range of issues which were revealed earlier this year. No action from the Prime Minister. What I did, within 24 hours, along with Daniel Andrews, of the Channel Nine revelations on 60 Minutes, was we expelled Adam Somyurek. We then went and intervened into the Victorian branch, we took over the branch and put Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin in charge of cleaning it up. We suspended all the operations of the membership committee. We wrote to every member who had been signed up over many, many years and asked them to verify their membership. And if it didn't stack up, they were removed from the rolls. We took strong, decisive action internally, just as we want strong, decisive action externally as well. Compare what Labor has done, compared it with the Liberal Party. Or compare our view that we need a strong National Anti-Corruption Commission with Scott Morrison, who continues to attack ICAC because they have the former premier of New South Wales giving evidence next Monday. I welcome IBAC’s inquiries. I welcome transparency inside our party or inside the political processes in general. The Liberal Party cover up, attack these independent bodies and won't have a National Anti-Corruption commission. What they want is a body whereby the only thing they’ll look at are things that are referred to them by the government itself. We’ve spoken about Angus Taylor. We still don't know who wrote the letter about Clover Moore with regard to Angus Taylor. He didn't give evidence before the appropriate authorities. He chose not to. So I think that the Liberal Party do have a lot to answer on these questions.
 
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
 
ALBANESE: The IBAC processes are underway and it's important they be allowed to take place independent of political interference. That's an important principle and one that I support.
 
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
 
ALBANESE: Well, I think the question here for the current government, is what role their sitting ministers and other members of Parliament that are under a cloud, that have these investigations that have had no response, that simply just charge ahead. I mean, the number of inquiries into serious issues that have occurred under this Government are multiple. And what Australians are concerned about, is they're concerned about their jobs. They’re concerned about their future. The sort of policies that we’ve put forward for a Future Made in Australia are what they're concerned about. But they're also concerned about abuse of taxpayer funds in terms of sports rorts, in terms of today we have Barnaby Joyce and others out there arguing that there's no problem with expanding the Better Regions fund with additional money so that it can be allocated to National Party seats. That's what we have today. And Bridget McKenzie, on this morning's radio, someone again defending the fact that a disproportionate amount of funds have again gone to the National Party seats. These are circumstances whereby this is a minister who lost her job, who took the fall for the sports rorts fiasco, where we know there were colour-coded sheets going around in the Prime Minister's office. These are the questions that remain unresolved. And these are questions that will be pursued in the Parliament over the next fortnight, including in Senate Estimates in two weeks’ time. Thanks.
 
 
ENDS