PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr FRENCH (Moore) (11:45): I rise to speak on this motion because Australian manufacturing matters. It matters to our economy, our regions, our national security and the dignity of skilled work in this country. The motion correctly notes that manufacturing is our sixth-largest industry, producing billions of value added output and employing 930,000 Australians.
It also correctly notes that Australian manufacturers can design, produce and scale high-tech, high-value goods. On that much, there is no dispute. But what this motion omits is just as important as what it includes.
It omits the record of those opposite. It omits the closure of the car industry. It omits the years of drift, delay and ideological hostility to active industry policy.
It omits the fact that, when Australian manufacturing needed a government to stand up for it, those opposite told the industry to fend for itself. We will not be lectured by the very people who helped close the car industry and then turned up years later in hi-vis vests pretending to be shop stewards for Australian industry. Manufacturing does not survive on nostalgia.
It does not survive on slogans. It survives on investment, skills, procurement, energy policy, supply chains and confidence. That is why the Albanese Labor government is delivering a future made in Australia.
This is serious industry policy. It is about making Australia stronger, more resilient and more secure. It is about backing workers, backing businesses and making sure more things are made here.
The world has changed. Wars, supply shocks, trade disruption and strategic competition have reminded us that a country that cannot make things leaves itself exposed. That does not mean Australia must make everything.
It means we must make more of the things that matter: critical minerals, metals, clean energy, defence capability, advanced manufacturing, AI, quantum, research, innovation. At the centre of that work is the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, which is actually putting real capital behind Australian industry. And that is the difference between this side of the House and those opposite.
They give speeches about manufacturing; we invest in it. In Western Australia, we understand the importance of building capability. We understand the trades, we understand resources, and we understand fabrication, heavy industry and the value of a skilled workforce.
That is why I'm proud that we are building trains in the west. Now, some will say that, if only part of the construction is local, it's not good enough. I understand that argument—I want more local content, more WA workers, more apprentices, more fabrication and more supply chain work done here—but do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
You do not build manufacturing by refusing to start. You rebuild it by placing orders, training workers, building facilities, improving capability and lifting local content over time. A workshop does not become world class because someone moves a motion in this place.
It gets there because it receives real work, real contracts, real apprentices, real investment and real continuity. The motion also talks about energy costs. Fair enough—manufacturers need affordable and reliable energy.
But those opposite want this country to forget the system they left behind: ageing assets, weak investment and uncertainty. Labor is doing the hard work—Rewiring the Nation, the Capacity Investment Scheme, firmed renewables, grid modernisation and a practical gas policy for manufacturers that still need gas as a feedstock or transitional fuel. The motion also raises imports and dumping.
Again, the government is acting. We are strengthening Australia's trade remedy system, making it more accessible, delivering faster decisions and better protecting Australian businesses from unfair practices. Manufacturing policy requires discipline.
It requires a government that understands that skills, procurement, energy, trade, research and industrial relations are all connected. Those opposite had a decade and they delivered drift, denial and decline—and now they oppose the National Reconstruction Fund, Rewiring the Nation and the very tools required to rebuild capability. So, yes, let's talk about Australian manufacturing.
But let's be honest: manufacturing will not be built by those who only discover it in opposition. It will be built by investment, procurement, skills, energy certainty and national purpose. Labor is not standing on the sidelines, hoping manufacturing comes back; we are getting on with the job of rebuilding it.
(Time expired)