MATT “MACCA’ Maccarthy, HOST: I'm here with New South Wales Senator, Tim Ayres. How are you today?
SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE: I'm good Macca, how are you going?
MACCA: Good thank you. Good to have you on board. Happy Monday. We started spring now, so hopefully we can put the hoodies and blankets away and get into it, enjoy a bit of sun.
SENATOR AYRES: Spring has definitely sprung. I don't know what it's like out there, but there's high winds definitely down to our south and bushfire warnings through parts of New South Wales. Once again, the weather is always a challenge. It's good to see blue skies, but follow the directions of the emergency agencies, and if you've got a fire ban on, do the right thing.
MACCA: Absolutely. Speaking of the bush, the Bush Summit happened as well. Any news out of that?
SENATOR AYRES: It's always good. It's a good contribution from News Limited, getting politicians and community leaders together in regional areas to try and talk about some of the solutions. There's a lot of negative politics about regional communities, and it's good to see community leaders coming together and talking about the solutions.
I've got a big event myself, a Future Made in Australia event in Newcastle this Friday to talk about; what are the big investments? What are the big manufacturing and engineering opportunities, and the big issues in the energy sector for the Hunter Valley and beyond?
It's going to be a good opportunity to get all of the supply chain, all those engineering companies, all those trades firms that employ most of the tradespeople throughout the Hunter Valley and beyond, some of the big industries, and government together to talk about making sure that we squeeze every last good job out of this big Future Made in Australia agenda, Macca. These sorts of events where you get regional communities together, in my experience, they lead to - not the negative politics, but they lead to people talking about good solutions and how they're going to contribute.
MACCA: I’ve just got a listener question for you, mate.
LISTENER: Hey Macca, for that politician, Tim Ayres, that answered like an absolute bully and just didn't answer an actual question, just gave the usual spiel. He contradicts himself. He says that we're rich in natural resources and under the ground, and we need to get other countries to make things here. We are rich in these resources. So, how can we be getting smashed in the power when it's our own coal? We're constantly using - how Russia's invaded Ukraine - that's impacting the way he says it does. It seems to all be words and excuses. Can you ask Mr. Ayres to explain for us dumb folk in the country, how and why Russia is apparently the impact he claims, and press him for an actual answer, not the hob wobble jungle bin that they usually give. The coal is here, the coal power is here, it goes by train past the coal power sites, so it's ridiculous that they continually use this excuse of Russia and other wars and other interests overseas as the reason that my power went up over 30% and it certainly wasn't from usage, as we've cut back. And then he also said that we need to have industry in the country here. How about the government get up Qantas for taking away our Tamworth maintenance here? 54 jobs, with like 54 families. That's potentially three teachers in the ratio, if all their kids went to one school. That's 54 less ratepayers or tenants, and it might only be 54 individuals, but if there's 200 people in an average of two adults, two kids per family. That's an enormous impact. The government bailed out these airlines over the COVID, they've made record profits, and they repay the community with news like this. Can you actually ask him what they are going to do about this? Because it's not good enough. Thank you.
MACCA: Well, this lady should have done the show, Tim, because she's got a few questions.
SENATOR AYRES: She's got a bundle of questions there, mate. Can I take them just one at a time? The first point is the energy point. The electricity point. We have had an electricity system in Australia that has been fundamentally based on coal fired power stations. Those power stations are closing down. Dozens of them notified over the last decade that they were closing down. They're all ancient facilities. Many you can't fix. You can't fix the problems in those power stations because they are cactus. They have been maintained and had shutdowns on them until they can't keep up. The big power companies had notified the last government that those facilities are closing down, and nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nobody is going to build or buy coal fired power stations because they're not economic anymore. The technologies moved past them. So, they were good in the past. They provided cheap electricity in the past. The problem here is all of this capacity is closing down, and we have a decade because the previous government couldn't get their act together. Absolutely nothing happened. And when you have power capacity leaving the system, that means there's less power, and as there are more consumers, that means it's the old supply and demand. Supply goes down, demand goes up. Power prices increase. Also, less capacity in terms of productivity and assets to be able to adjust that speed. What this government is doing is putting in the cheapest form of power that is available now, and that is solar and wind with storage capacity. That's what's going on. There's a decade lag where nothing happened under the previous government. Now, they're full of what they claim are good ideas: nuclear power stations. Nuclear reactors in regional areas that'll provide at best 4% of Australia's energy needs in the 2050s. But the problem is, what they didn't do then, right? What they didn't do over the last decade has left Australia in the lurch. That is what we are dealing with now.
The second issue appears to me to be about, well, what is the relationship between what's happened with Russia and Ukraine and power prices, and also inflation, Macca. Well, the truth is, we're in a global market, and the global market for gas and energy more broadly, suffered a big shock when that event happened. [cut out] for market for energy, Australia supplies gas to the world. That has had an impact on the Australian energy market. There are tough issues in all of that, Macca, for regional communities and for the manufacturing sector. What this government is doing is dealing with the legacy of a decade of failure, which has made it much harder to deal with these issues. We are at speed trying to work through getting the cheapest form of energy into the grid.
MACCA: And the local question to Tim, obviously, on this QantasLink situation, looking to get rid of 50 people, as far as employees are concerned, on this heavy maintenance. Now, we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago you were going to make some calls. How did you go?
SENATOR AYRES: I know this facility pretty well, Macca. In my old job as a union official, I represented many of those workers. Qantas have made a commercial decision that is about how their fleet is going to be maintained and new technology in their fleet as they move into different fleets as I understand it. The government is asking the tough questions at Qantas, but at the end of the day, Qantas is not the nationally owned carrier anymore. We don't get to determine how they allocate their resources. People don't want politicians’ answers to these questions, I'll give people a straight answer. This is, at the end of the day, a commercial facility for Qantas. It is bad news for regional Australia. It is bad news for regional aerospace capability, because these are good jobs. But beyond them being good jobs in a community like Tamworth, they are part of our regional network of aerospace maintenance capability. We call on Qantas to look at locating as much of their aerospace maintenance as is possible in Tamworth and other regional centers. But at the end of the day, this is not something where the government can direct Qantas to do something else. That is not the way that the economy works.
MACCA: It is a tough one, and obviously, as that lady said, the impact will be felt right across the board there, with schools and local business and all that sort of thing. 50 people in a community like ours, 50 families, is certainly a big number. Tim, a little bit of positivity there.
SENATOR AYRES: Let me just say this; our job as a government is to bring the best manufacturing by bringing new investment and getting the framework right. We've got new investment in new manufacturing that is about thousands and thousands of jobs across regional Australia. That's why, as I say, I'll be in the Hunter with some of the world's best manufacturers and major manufacturers in the region, with the state government, with others, with this Future Made in Australia agenda, which is all about attracting the best manufacturers and the best investment into regional Australia. It's about creating jobs for not just this decade, but for the decades to come. That’s the big challenge where we can contribute. That's why we're offering big incentives for manufacturing investment in Australia, more than any other government has in our history, ever.
MACCA: Yeah, anyway, mate, as I said, this impacts us locally, and I guess you gotta fly the flag for Future Made in Australia. We did ask you two weeks ago to make some phone calls. Doesn't sound like we've been able to get anything sorted with that one. I guess we just move on, and those people have got to find other jobs, and no government bailouts required with that one, by the sounds of things. And I think a lot of that maintenance headed towards Cairns from what I believe so fair way away from here. But we will do what we do. Little bit of light at the end of the tunnel...some social security payments being bumped, and a few bits and pieces there by the looks of things so there's some relief there for somebody.
SENATOR AYRES: Yeah, that's right. What we're facing is very challenging circumstances in terms of inflation, and that means costs go up for everybody, particularly, for people with low incomes it has the biggest has the biggest effect. We are, as a government, making sure that the first two budget surpluses back-to-back in nearly 20 years, try and keep downward pressure on inflation and on interest rates. We've done tax cuts for every Australian, to try and make sure we're providing responsible cost-of-living relief. The news for September is 5.1 million Australians who are on the age pension, or the Disability Support Pension, the carer payment increase. That means they'll go up by about $28 a fortnight, or $42 a fortnight for couples, that will make that will make a big difference for people. [Cuts out]
MACCA: Sounds like Tim's phone keeps cutting out there. I've probably heard enough. Anyway, Senator, we asked you to answer a couple of questions it seems to be all about Future Made in Australia policy for you.
ENDS.
