ADJOURNMENT

Ms ALDRED (Monash—Opposition Whip) (16:43): In the last fortnight I had the privilege of visiting Talum Windows in Inverloch in my electorate of Monash. Emmet is the third generation in that family business. They take great pride and practise great craftsmanship in the aluminium and timber windows and frames that they produce to a very high standard in Inverloch.

We're part of the great Gippsland region, which has seen its fair share of natural disasters, from floods to bushfires, and there are deservedly high Australian standards for those windows and fittings. But I was most concerned to learn that a lot of Australian manufacturers and family owned businesses like Talum Windows are up against a flood of international imports.

In fact, there's been a 1,700 per cent increase in imported windows from Vietnam, and 87 per cent of those tested failed Australian standards. This is of concern not just to me but to others as well. In fact, the Australian Anti-Dumping Commission are currently conducting an investigation into Chinese imported windows, and the statement of facts is due to be released on 23 September—this month.

I support local jobs and I support local manufacturing businesses, who work to a very high standard, and I'll be taking an active interest in the findings and recommendations out of that Australian Anti-Dumping Commission investigation. That leads me to another issue in my local area—indeed, also in the Bass Coast Shire area—and that is the Kernot bridge. I was very proud to secure funding, along with Rochelle Halstead, the Liberal candidate for Bass, to fix that bridge, because many residents in that local area were having to take a 15-minute detour, and, heading into a very dangerous bushfire season, that was going to be catastrophic for emergency services vehicles and residents needing to access those properties quickly.

I have been very pleased to secure that funding for Bass Coast Shire Council to get on with the construction of that bridge, but it is of concern that the timber required is stuck at a port in the United States awaiting shipment. The longer that bridge takes to be constructed, the longer residents in that area have to wait. That brings me to the point around sovereign capability.

I'm very proud to come from a region that grows, makes and manufactures things the rest of our country relies on. We have highly skilled people in highly skilled jobs. We've got the available timber and resources, from plantation to hardwood.

It is a great shame, I think, that the Victorian Labor state government closed down our native hardwood industry. We should be making things like that bridge using timber from Victoria, not from interstate and certainly not from overseas, when we are able to source that locally. I want to thank the Bass Coast Malayalee Association for inviting me to their Onam festival just a couple of weeks ago.

I know many of the volunteers there invested months and months of tireless work and effort into making it such a happy and joyous occasion. I was deeply privileged to have the honour of being invited along to speak. I joined my state Liberal colleague Rochelle Halstead, the candidate for Bass.

We have a wonderful local Indian community. I was very, very privileged and honoured to receive their invitation to attend. Last month, EVs outsold petrol and diesel cars for the first time in Australia, and I want to raise some concerns around consumer protection, particularly.

I don't think we have a fit-for-purpose consumer protection framework in Australia for connected vehicles, particularly EVs. There are a number of concerns ranging from national security through to domestic violence victims fleeing their perpetrators. In publications ranging from the New York Times to the Guardian this week, there have been concerns raised about a lack of privacy by design in these vehicles.

The federal government was warned over a year ago by the Australian Privacy Commissioner that the Privacy Act and other relevant regulatory frameworks are not fit for purpose. I have real concerns about consumers being able to make an informed decision about the car that they're buying, and about the way the geolocation, tracking and data collection is treated by manufacturers like Huawei, who are building the communications systems for those cars that are being imported into Australia.

I'm calling on the federal government to get its skates on, because we are lagging well behind the United States, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, India and other security partners in this regard.