FIONA PHILLIPS, MEMBER FOR GILMORE: I'm Fiona Phillips, the Federal Member for Gilmore. And I'm really thrilled to be here with Senator Tim Ayres today, of course, the Assistant Minister for Trade and the Assistant Minister for a Future Made in Australia. I really wanted to bring Tim to Shoalhaven Starches here at Bomaderry today. This is such an important business for our local community. Around five hundred local jobs here, supporting families and supporting our community. So, it's been really good to see some of the additions that have been made, including the new packing plant, and, of course, all the new wagons that are so important. Manildra has done a great job in terms of, you know, reducing emissions, and really using every part of their product as we know, as I said, it's just so exciting to be here with Tim, particularly in Tim's portfolios, and how we continue to help Manildra and employees.
SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE AND A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA: Well, thank you, Fiona. It's terrific to be here with Fiona Phillips, the member for Gilmore and Labor's candidate for Gilmore in this vital Federal election. I want to thank John Honan, the Honan family and the leadership of the Manildra Group for welcoming us here today. An opportunity for Fiona to meet again with the staff and leadership of Manildra group and their five hundred staff. Don't let anybody be fooled by the fact that this is a legacy industrial facility. It is state of the art modern technology, tens of millions of dollars of fresh investment in new technology to secure the future of this facility exporting around Australia and around the world. Starch and ethanol and gluten products from Australia's agriculture sector, value-added here in Nowra and Bomaderry for export around the world. This is what a Future Made in Australia is all about – it’s about adding value to Australia's resources. It is the biggest pro-manufacturing package of any government in Australia. Designed to create jobs and investment and opportunity in Australia's industrial regions, including the Shoalhaven and the South Coast. I was really proud to be here with Anthony Albanese just a few weeks ago, where the Prime Minister announced Labor's local content package. Using local steel made here in Port Kembla by BlueScope Steel in the renewables roll out. And more broadly we're determined to lead the way as a Government buying Australian to support Australian steel and support Australian aluminium products. Happy to take any questions.
JOURNALIST: Okay so, [inaudible] new train stock, new carriages [inaudible]
AYRES: I’m delighted to have an opportunity to have a look at the hundreds of wagons and locomotives that Manildra have purchased. It's more a sign of confidence for Manildra in the local sector. Rail procurement is generally done by the big firms and by the state government. So, the state governments purchase rail rolling stock or passenger fleets and big firms like Graincorp, Manildra, Rio Tinto, BHP buy rolling stock for the freight sector. The Albanese Government came to office with a plan to work together with the states to bring passenger fleet manufacturers back to Australia. And if you remember the last Transport Minister in New South Wales to handle the rolling stock contracts, of course, was Andrew Constance, and what he did was close down firms in the Hunter Valley and regional Australia that employed thousands of people and offshored rail manufacturing jobs to China and Korea and India. Four thousand blue collar Australian workers lost their jobs because Andrew Constance decided to offshore that work overseas. The result: lost jobs, hundreds of lost apprenticeships. Trains that didn't turn up on time, that were massively over budget, didn't fit on Sydney train stations and didn't fit through Sydney tunnels. It was a public procurement disaster run by Andrew Constance that cost thousands of Australians their jobs. He didn't shed a tear for blue collar workers when he closed down their factories. The only job that Andrew Constance is interested is his own. We are extending our work as a Government, led by the Industry Minister, to go from working with the states to secure millions of dollars of passenger rail manufacturing. Because of that, that grows the industry's capability to be able to do more of the freight work here in Australia. For example, in Western Australia, where the state governments work with Rio Tinto and BHP to [inaudible] that public policy disaster that diminished Australia’s capacity to [inaudible].
PHILLIPS: So, under the Albanese safeguard mechanism, we’ve actually provided significant funding to Shoalhaven Starches to help reduce emissions. So that funding is directly having an impact up here and supporting that local manufacturing here and those local jobs.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible]
AYRES: So, the wagons are of course a matter for Manildra, delighted to see that work going on. The Government has been working very closely with Manildra over our whole term on questions like making sure there is gas supply, making sure that we're working with them on new investments, and that work is continuing. I’m not here to make fresh announcements on behalf of the Labor government about Manildra. I’m here to say that the Albanese Government has the largest pro-manufacturing package of incentives. A $22.7 billion on a Future Made in Australia program, $15 billion for National Reconstruction Fund, and that is supporting investment from one end of the country to the other.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible]
AYRES: [inaudible] we have secured passenger rail manufacturing here. That we are working coordinated with the states on passenger rail, that is purchased by the governments here in Australia, we are working to extend that work. The alternative, on offer for people on the South Coast is Andrew Constance, who, when he had the levers in his hands, decided to send public rail projects overseas, to Korea and India and China. So, we'll work with industry to do the maximum that we can here in Australia. The alternative, the alternative, Peter Dutton and Andrew Constance is immediately jobs offshore. Ask for a judge on their record. Andrew is a stone-cold job-killer.
JOURNALIST: So, these characters that we're talking about, [inaudible]
AYRES: Well, we're not here to talk about the characters. We're here to talk about this giant facility that employs five hundred South Coast workers. Exporting Australian ethanol products all around Australia, gluten products all around the world, and starch products for Australian manufacturing. All over the food and beverage supply chain, the pharmaceutical supply chain and the industrial supply chain.
JOURNALIST: Have you spoken about the potential for carriages to be made in Australia?
AYRES: I don't expect them to be making any big procurements in rail anytime soon. But what we have done as a Government in work led by Minister Ed Husic is go from a position where in New South Wales, 0% passenger rail has been made in Australia, to where 100% passenger rail procurement will be done here in Australia. Freight rail, slightly lower value rail production. We do believe that by expanding our passenger rail capability, the manufacturing capability here in Australia and here in New South Wales, that means that you lift the scale, you lift the efficiency, you lift the capacity of the local industry to have the skills and technology to deploy great rail. But we're starting from a long way back, principally because Andrew Constance closed all those facilities down. It wasn't an accident that Andrew Constance closed those facilities down. When he was the Transport Minister, he made a decision to send four thousand Australian jobs to Korea and China and India. It was an absolutely unforgivable act of treachery for Australian jobs and Australian blue-collar workers. That's what he did. He is running from his record here in Gilmore. It's his ninth time trying to find his way into Parliament. This bloke’s record on blue collar jobs is nothing short of disastrous. We are working in a careful way through these issues. There has been significant achievement in rail performance with all of the states. I'm really pleased with the level of commitment from state governments to local rail manufacturing, but we have started from a long way back because the previous state Liberal government and Andrew Constance in New South Wales decimated Australian manufacturing capability.
JOURNALIST: Can you talk Fiona about the role of Gilmore, about how important Gilmore is to the Labor party forming government?
AYRES: Well, every seat matters. Every seat matters. This is going to be a very tight contest and a vote, sadly, a vote for Andrew Constance here in Gilmore is a vote for Peter Dutton. And Peter Dutton as the Prime Minister will cut Medicare. Has promised to, as one of his first acts, to go into the parliament and move legislation to lift taxes on working Australians, and has a $600 billion nuclear reactor plan that will force more and more and more cuts for the services that people in Gilmore need. One of the areas that I was engaged in in opposition was Veterans Affairs, the big cuts that he's telegraphing for Veterans Affairs – just after we've cleared the backlog of 40,000 veterans who couldn't get access to the services and claims that they needed. Some of them died while they were waiting. Because of the labour hire approach that the previous government led. Peter Dutton is promising to bring that back, promising to terminate jobs in regional Australia supporting veterans and put veterans back on the scrap heap. That is not the approach this Government has taken to fix the backlog; we’re working with veterans. It's just one of the areas that show why Gilmore is so important. And a vote for Fiona Phillips is a vote for stronger Medicare, for Urgent Care Centres, for strengthened public services, for cost of living help that every Australian family needs.
ENDS.
