Well, thank you very much, Ellen, for that introduction.

I want to add my acknowledgement of country to the previous speakers. It is a real pleasure to follow Steven Miles, who has led a government here that is absolutely focused on rebuilding Queensland manufacturing, with his ministerial colleague, Glenn Butcher, who's been a terrific partner for the Albanese government in terms of our own manufacturing ambitions.

I want to thank Weld Australia and The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, for the opportunity to speak.

It is good to look out at this crowd. I see some old friends from the trade union movement, long term supporters of manufacturing and the country's renewable energy superpower objectives.

Sponsors of this event and all the firms and industry associations here underscores one of the defining features of this Albanese Government. The Prime Minister has been very clear. We are not anything like the Morrison government wandering around the country looking for an argument with people. What I want to see, what the Prime Minister wants to see, is a focus on the national interest objectives that we have to secure for the future of the country, and build cooperation between firms, industry, university sector, our education sector, our other institutions, our trade unions, to achieve national objectives in the national interest.

As Ellen's pointed out, I stand before you as a freshly sworn in Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister assisting the Prime Minister on the Future Made in Australia. While that title and the scope of those responsibilities is slightly different, my focus remains the same; rebuilding our manufacturing sector in Australia, re-industrializing our economy and making sure that we win the battle for future good jobs.

I don't want to spend too much time on this aspect of the argument, but of course, Australian manufacturing is a pale shadow of what it was in the post-war period through to the 1980s. The decline, in fact, began under high tariff walls, and it fed off a growing complacency about Australia's place in the world and the hostility of some of the establishment to Australian manufacturing.

When it was offshored, Australia's ability to do complex things and to solve national challenges fell further. Over the past 30 years, we have lost hundreds of thousands of high-quality manufacturing jobs, but we've lost tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of opportunities for school leavers who've missed out on good apprenticeships, engineering leaderships, startups that have shifted offshore because they've been unable to capture the commercialisation opportunities here and investment opportunities squandered.

It's left us more dependent than ever on bulk commodity exports for our national income. It's made us poorer, less equal, and it's put downward pressure on national productivity. And the harshest impact has been on the industrial regions in our outer suburbs, with a decidedly negative social, economic and democratic impact.

I don't say any of this to make an argument for a return to a protectionist approach. As a middle-sized economy in the fastest growing region of the world in history, Australia can't afford to be complacent about our economic or our strategic future. Southeast Asia is a region full of opportunity. It's our region, and it is embarking on two great transitions; first from low- and middle-income economies to middle- and high-income economies, and second; the greatest industrial transformation since the Industrial Revolution, from high emission economies to net zero emission economies. This is all relevant to our trading future. 97% of our trading partners have their own net zero targets. They need energy, low emissions manufactured products, engineering and clean tech to power their own net zero commitments. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Australia to become a manufacturing powerhouse again, and a renewable energy superpower in the process.

We stand in a very stark way between two alternate futures. The first, if we look backward and can't shift our dependence on the current fossil fuel intensive economy, our economic complexity continues to decline, resilience declines, investment in productive manufacturing capability is directed offshore, and incomes decline. The second future - seizing the opportunity that is presented to us because of our natural resources, our comparative advantage and proximity to the world's fastest growing markets gives us. We have all the resources required to support the industrial and economic transition of our own economy, of our Southeast Asian region, and to contribute to the world's transformation.

Below the ground, we are rich in all of the resources required. Critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, iron ore, copper. Our mining industry capacity and our mining engineering capacity stand us in very good stead indeed, everything that's required for that industrial transformation. And of course, above the ground, we have a population of smart, skilled and resilient people, the world's best solar and wind resources, enormous amounts of space, and a government committed to shaping change in Australia's interest amidst a rapidly shifting world.

The only thing that we don't have in abundance is time. This consequential decade really does matter. The Australian Government's Future Made in Australia package is our chance to diversify and re-industrialize our economy, to build a more productive, more competitive economy with more good jobs and more opportunity, particularly in our great industrial, mining and energy regions, and in our manufacturing intensive outer suburbs.

With countries around the world developing aggressive approaches in this area, there is a new competition abroad, and if Australia wants to be in this, we have to compete. We must send a clear market signal to the investment community around the world that Australia is a good place to invest, and that Australian manufacturing is competitive.

Well before the last federal election, we said we wanted to build a more productive, more competitive economy with good jobs and opportunities. We're committed to making Australia a country that makes things again. That's what drives the Albanese government's Future Made in Australia agenda.

The foundational policy settings, strategies and programs for our Future Made in Australia agenda are now in place. There is now, for all of us (for government at all levels, for industry) a lot of work to do. We announced in the 24-25 budget, that the Australian Government's investing $22.7 billion over the next decade through what is the country's biggest ever pro-manufacturing package. That package is about maximizing the economic and industrial benefits of the move to net zero and securing Australia's place in a global economic and strategic landscape.

Production tax credits, which form a very significant part of the package, while they are substantial, they are no regrets measures. Firms only become eligible for participation in the tax credit scheme when they manufacture in Australia. That is a very significant difference to where industry policy has been before in Australia. While grants are important and form part of the government's package, it's not grants in the hope that something will change. It's tax credits on delivery of manufacturing jobs here in Australia.

I want to acknowledge the work that Ed Husic has done, broadly in the industry policy space, the $15 billion national reconstruction fund - the keystone of our commercialisation and re-industrialisation strategy - is now operational. The government is determined to drive, and Steven just set out for you a long list of the projects and manufacturing opportunities that are here in Queensland, many of them, particularly in factories, and a series of these other areas, in cooperation with the federal government - $392 million industry growth program. These are all opportunities that require state and Commonwealth cooperation.

Solar cell technology invented here in Australia. Vanadium flow batteries invented in Australia. What we have singularly failed to do as a country, of course, is commercialize those opportunities here. Vanadium flow batteries have better energy storage performance than the large lithium-ion batteries. They're cheaper and they can last indefinitely. That's perfect for teaming with wind and solar facilities that open enormous commercial opportunities for making those batteries here and exporting them around the world. That's why the Prime Minister and Industry Minister Ed Husic released the National Battery Strategy in May outlining how we can be a globally competitive battery maker.

The investment here in Brisbane in PsiQuantum, meaning that Australia will be playing a leading role in quantum development and building the world's first fault tolerant quantum computer here. That has enormous flow on opportunities for industry all through Queensland and Australia.

The biggest pro-manufacturing package in Australian history. None of it is old school protectionism. It's mission focused industry policy. It's trade policy, and it's a platform for collaboration with firms and governments across the region, and the benefits, they accrue almost entirely to our outer suburbs and to our industrial regions. It will result in an uplift in productivity and innovation that only manufacturing can deliver.

But of course, we are going to have to do it together; business, government, research institutions, trade unions, the investment community, together in the national interest, and that means you in the audience as well. You understand and you have been advocating this - it's why you're here - for a stronger, bigger and new approach to manufacturing.  And you will understand how important government's role is in all of this.

Despite the urgency and the national interest questions that are engaged here, Peter Dutton and the Liberals and Nationals singularly fail to understand. They have opposed the Future Made in Australia ambition, and have signalled that they will oppose the act in the parliament all the way. If we are going to get behind this ambition, across the Australian community, we are going to have to work for it, and ultimately, we are going to have to vote for it.

We lost a decade under the inertia and energy policy instability of the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. These are the same people who when confronted with the task of shipbuilding and building Australia's submarines, even before we made a decision to switch to nuclear powered conventionally armed submarines, said memorably that Australians couldn't build a canoe. That's the message they send to Australian manufacturing. These are the same people who said that Australia can't and shouldn't build trains here. They're the ones who forced the automotive industry offshore.

[Dutton is employing] a particular kind of negativity on which rests a particular kind of political strategy, in hoping that Australia will lose so that he can try and construct a political victory out of that. Australians deserve a lot more than that, and Australian manufacturing deserves a lot more than that.

These are the defining challenges of our era; rebuilding our industrial capability, making sure that Australia can solve the tough challenges of the future. The Future Made in Australia act is aimed squarely at all of that. It engages all of you. I'm delighted to be appointed to champion it. I'm really looking forward to the tough job, the hard work of implementing this and delivering a Future Made in Australia. Thank you very much.

ENDS.