TRISH MEARS, CANDIDATE FOR HINKLER: Well hello everyone, I’m Trish Mears and it’s a real honour to have the Prime Minister and Ministers here today. I’m the Labor Candidate for Hinkler, in fact, I want to be the first female Member for Hinkler. And we had the Prime Minister at Hervey Bay recently when they had their terrible weather event, and it was so wonderful to see how he supported everyone down there. Of course, here we have this amazing facility, Bundaberg Brewed Drinks and it’s a real thrill to have you here. Please welcome the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well thanks so much Trish, and it’s great to be back here in Central Queensland to launch our Australian Made campaign. We had $20 million in the Budget on Tuesday night to back in the Australian Made campaign. We know that we can make things here, and part of my Government's agenda is a Future Made in Australia. We want more manufacturing here, more jobs created here. We want to celebrate what is here, the world's best ginger beer. And down the road, when you combine it with another Bundy product, the world's best dark and stormy as well is pretty handy, I must say, but probably not at this time in the day. So, it is fantastic to be here. This company is iconic. It employs directly over 230 people, but indirectly, many times more than that. Everything from the local ginger that is grown here through to the advanced manufacturing that we've seen here at this facility, but also at their new facility that I opened up the road about a year ago now, I think it was. It opened with a $19 million grant from the Commonwealth, enabling them to really step up the speed of their manufacturing and to really use it to ensure that this great, iconic Australian company has a great future as we look ahead.
 
It's great to be back in this electorate. Can I say as well, I was in Hervey Bay last week for the floods and on Thursday I was able to welcome the kids from the Star of the Sea Catholic Primary School. I visited the school there. It had been devastated by the floods. The kids were learning in the library and in the staff rooms, everything was being done to keep that learning going on. And it didn't stop them getting on a plane and then getting on a bus to go to Canberra and to see Parliament work in Budget Week. And I welcomed them into the Prime Minister's courtyard. So, just a shout out to those kids and those families. Just a shout out as well, to the public servants who were working and continue to work out of a caravan in Hervey Bay, helping people to get the payments that they need as an urgent priority. And those payments were being processed within 24 hours. I visited the centre there in Brisbane that employs over a thousand people, and there in Hervey Bay. They are a great example of how hard our public servants work and why they deserve to be treated with respect rather than just dismissed here on the ground.
 
So, I'm going to turn to Ed Husic, my fantastic Minister for Industry, who is so passionate about making things here and who has led the campaign to have initiatives such as the National Reconstruction Fund, the other funds that we have for green metals and for making more things here, taking advantage of the transition that's occurring in the global economy as well. Minister Husic.
 
ED HUSIC, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SCIENCE: Thanks, Prime Minister, and thanks also to Trish, and can I just say, thanks to John and Rae-Lee and the whole team here at Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, not only for making a great product, but also backing manufacturing in regional Australia. Here in Queensland when you look at the total number of manufacturing businesses, half of them are in regional Queensland, way better than any other part of the country, and it speaks to the fact that we've got people who believe in manufacturing, who back it, and create great jobs in the process. It's time to buy Australian and back Australians. This is a time with everything happening in the world where we back businesses and we back the jobs that they create. The initiative that we've announced with the additional funding to buy Australian is designed to make it easier for Australian shoppers that want to buy Australian to find Australian products. Very important. We can do it through national leadership and we can do it as everyday Australians being able to back our own and the great products that they make very important. Everything our Government has been doing in this term has been to ensure that we're a country that makes things, important for our economic security and our national security as well. We have done that because manufacturing makes great jobs as well that are secure and well paying.
 
And you contrast it to the other side, Peter Dutton, the Liberals and the Nationals have opposed every single measure we have taken as a Government to back Australian manufacturing. And I was stunned that Peter Dutton just in the last 24 hours called manufacturing a “joke” and his Shadow Industry Minister called Australian manufacturing a “graveyard.” And my message to Peter Dutton is to not talk down his fellow Queenslanders because the work that's being done here by Queenslanders is not a joke. And Australian workers, blue collar workers across the country, want to know that they have got an Australian Government that's got their backs and that the work that they're doing is not in a graveyard. We believe in a future made in Australia. We want to build Australia's future and we will do just that.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much. We're going to take a couple of questions from locals first. If there are any questions from locals. No, if not, there were people in the queue before, you were one. Just to show you don’t miss out. And then there's Charles and Paul.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, we just wanted to ask a reader question from Sam from Inglewood, actually, who's asked, you know, will you commit to cutting migration to halt Australia's out of control population growth? Now, we know that you have and that a key part of this plank is capping international student numbers. What else are you willing to do for this commitment?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we've had a 31% drop. That's what Tuesday night's Budget showed. And when we introduced a cap on international students, what we saw was that Peter Dutton opposed it. Not surprising from a guy who won the gold medal and the silver medal for the Minister who's issued the most number of visas in their time as Minister. Charles, if he's here.
 
JOURNALIST: I like to hide, hide well. You mentioned the seven changes in Prime Ministers over the last seven elections or whatever it's been. What do you say to those voters that have moved from the major parties to third parties, be it the Greens, the Teals, those disillusioned voters that are looking for something else?
 
PRIME MINISTER: What I say is that if you are going to really change the country, and it's why I joined the Labor Party as a very young person, you need to be sitting around the Cabinet table. You can't govern the country with 150 independents. You need to govern the country with a Cabinet. I lead a majority government with 78 seats. That has brought stability, it has brought order, and we replaced a government that was chaotic, frankly. And my Government, I believe, deserves to be re-elected. We respect the Australian people and will go out there and advocate our case. We also understand that in spite of the fact that we are proud of our record, it is the offer going forward that's important as well. Which is why measures such as this. Measures such as taking what we've done in our first term and building on them. We had tax cuts for every taxpayer. We're going to give another two. We had two lots of energy price relief. We're going to have another one. We had medicines reduced to $30. We are going to reduce them to $25. We had 87 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics. We're going to have another 50. We supported a Future Made in Australia. We're building on that. And we want the opportunity to roll out the further funding for the National Reconstruction Fund, working with business to create jobs here in Australia, to make things here in Australia. If that's all turned around, if we go backwards, backwards to the chaos, backwards to no tax cuts, backwards to no cost of living relief, backwards to a show that seeks to divide and is always negative, that is not the way forward for Australia. And I say that, I ask that we have a majority Labor government. That's my objective, I'm here in Hinkler. Trish is a great candidate. We have a fantastic candidate in Ali France in Dixon, where we were earlier today. I tell you what, if I've seen a more courageous person run for public office than Ali France, it certainly doesn't come to mind. She's someone I'd want in my corner. And in Dickson, she's going to be in their corner. Paul.
 
JOURNALIST: You talked about winning seats, PM, earlier today, not just defending them. You seem super confident that your team is a more capable, ready to govern team, is anything but going forward on seat numbers then a failure for you?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I'm determined to be successful. I'm one for one. We have 78 seats and I have a fantastic team. And I've got to say that the people who got elected last time won seats off the Coalition. Just to take NSW, for example, Gordon Reid in Robertson, Sally Sitou in Reid, Jerome Laxale in Bennelong. Just in that little, relatively small part of Australia, given the size of our great continent, they're all nailing it. They're working their guts out, they're making contributions and they have extraordinary capacity. If they were on the other side, they'd be sitting on the front bench already, given the people who are there, frankly, that end corner is, you know, a group who I just don't think are anywhere near up to ever serving. I think would struggle, frankly, to get a guernsey as Inner West councillors, let alone as potential alternative Ministers in the government. Thank you very much.

ENDS