QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator CADELL (New South Wales) (15:33): I take note of the previous speaker and take note of some of the things she said. Labor is in the driver's seat, but it looks they've been at the bar for a few hours before they got in it! This is where we go.
We hear these things. She says we don't want to hear, we don't want them to talk and we don't want them to mention these things; no, we're sick of you mentioning these things. We hear that 35,000 houses are going to be built under the HAFF, but we've not heard that a single house has been built under the HAFF.
It's 'what we're going to do'. 'What we're going to do is put $10 billion aside to build these houses. We've spent billions, but we've built none. We've acquired some.
What we're going to do is have a policy about a future made in Australia.' But wait. At estimates, I asked, 'What does that mean?' regarding the announcement for the Liddell Power Station site in the Hunter Valley and their Solar SunShot program. Out there comes SunDrive, this great, wonderful program to build solar panels in Australia.
They said, 'This is what we're going to do—put money behind this company.' But what happens within months of that announcement? SunDrive lays off half its staff and then comes out and admits: 'We're not actually going to make solar panels in Australia; we're going to import components and assemble them in Australia. We'll buy the frames from Vietnam, we'll buy the solar panels from China, we'll buy the inverters from China, and we'll assemble them.' It's like me going to IKEA.
If I go to IKEA and buy a flat pack and put it together, am I suddenly a manufacturer of furniture under their definition in their Future Made in Australia plan? I would have been. I would have qualified as a manufacturer for assembling stuff in Australia.
We hear about how many messaging staff and communications staff the Prime Minister has, how great they are at communicating and how on-message they are. How about we take some of those staff into policy that actually works, so that we don't just talk about stuff but we do stuff. This is what we see all over.
We see businesses like Energy Renaissance in the Hunter, Australia's first lithium-ion battery manufacturer, in administration. We don't talk about that because we don't talk about the realities of it. We aren't even heading to a future assembled in Australia anymore; we're talking about a future imported to Australia.
When we're talking about the at-risk industries, we come back to that very big thing in the Hunter, up at Tomago, Tomago Aluminium. In this place last night I read out the email that the CEO sent as consultation to their contractors about their discussions and process for shutting the plant down in 2028. They didn't say it was 10 years of this, five years of this or whatever it was.
It said the inability to secure a contract beyond 2028 for energy was the problem. It wasn't 10 years ago that that policy was there; it is now. Three-and-a-half years of Labor behind the wheel, as the previous speaker said, has got us here.
Over a thousand employees got this email yesterday about consultations to lose their jobs. There are thousands across the greater region who depend on the aluminium, the work or the maintenance who may lose their jobs. We heard the previous speaker.
This is exactly the mentality: 'We gave energy handouts. We gave energy rebates.' As the great Margaret Thatcher said—as Hugh said in that great movie Notting Hill, that saucy minx Margaret Thatcher—sooner or later, under socialism, you run out of other people's money. We are giving $2 billion for aluminium, and it's still not enough.
We are giving energy rebates, and it's still not enough. Tomago is a big thing now because it's a single spot with so many jobs, but what about the collective of all the small businesses out there paying their energy prices? What about the bakers?
What about the engineering firms? What about the small manufacturers that don't make the news headlines because not as many people individually lose their jobs but collectively lose so much more? It is time not to look at the spin.
It is time to look at the scoreboard. Energy prices are up. Jobs are starting to collapse.
Industry is in a dead standstill. Even in his recent speech, Garnaut is out there saying that private investment in renewables is at an all-time low because of the Capacity Investment Scheme and other things. Everyone needs a subsidy.
You have not created the environment to build more energy. You are creating an environment to lose more jobs. The people of the Hunter and Tomago are an early warning sign.
There will be more. There will be so many more that don't get the press. Spend more time on policy.
Don't come up with the hype. Start delivering better policies. The people of Australia, the people of the Hunter, deserve no less.
(Time expired) Question agreed to.