SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE: I'm very, very excited to be here at the old Oak facility in Muswellbrook. The Sydney Rum Distillery is making this very significant investment in the future of Muswellbrook. It's going to create dozens and dozens of jobs and high-quality Australian rum for the Australian market and for the export market. It's a great development. We’re urging Australians to buy Australian, and I can't think of anything too much more Australian than buying Australian rum.
JOURNALIST: Wonderful. Some of the other things that I might quickly touch on that I've been sort of given. So, we are here talking about a rum distillery, will your government consider putting a freeze on the alcohol excise to help businesses like this sort of grow in the area?
SENATOR AYRES: I can see that you're very well briefed by the Australian Distillers Association. That's them doing their job, actual grassroots industry organisation backing the industry. There are 700 distilleries, mostly in regional communities around Australia, employing thousands of Australians. We have taken one step forward, which has been to lift the threshold below which excise isn't paid. That's thousands of dollars straight onto the bottom line of small distillers right around the country. We are working hard to support the sector in its export efforts, particularly in Southeast Asia. And as you will have seen that we've been backing Australian brewers by freezing excise for draft beer and backing the hotel industry as well. We'll keep working with the sector looking at more reforms, but we support Australian distillers, and we support Australian distillery workers because it's good jobs in regional communities like Muswellbrook.
JOURNALIST: Touching on regional jobs in communities like Muswellbrook, I know it's an important issue up here at the moment, the mayor was only speaking this week on that issue. What is your government doing to sort of, I guess, spur on more initiatives, like a big Sydney company coming to a regional town to set up shop? Is there anything else for your government?
SENATOR AYRES: Can I say two things about this? Firstly, I'm really encouraged by the work that Mayor Jeff Drayton has been doing, speaking up for the Muswellbrook community and for the Upper Hunter. It is what we need. Strong local advocates fighting for investment in regional economies like Muswellbrook. He's been a forthright advocate, as I said the other day in the Newcastle Herald, he's barking up the right tree. We want to see local communities fighting hard for local investment. Just like Jeff, the Australian Government is fighting hard for investment in Australian manufacturing. Our Future Made in Australia program is the biggest pro manufacturing package in Australian history, $22.7 billion worth of incentives there, particularly in critical minerals and iron and steel and manufacturing, delivering investment in local jobs in regional communities.
JOURNALIST: Jeff, obviously, economically, this is very exciting for Muswellbrook not only for this business, but for the entire community.
COUNCILLOR JEFF DRAYTON, MAYOR OF MUSWELLBROOK SHIRE COUNCIL: Yeah, absolutely, it is really exciting. And Sydney Rum Distillery have just come here and set up camp. Effectively, they've come here in really early stages and quite quickly embedded themselves quite well in the community. They're really keen on using local suppliers. They're always asking information about the history of the Oak factory and the history of Muswellbrook, the history of the town itself, to be included in the name of a rum maybe going forward. But they certainly moved in and become a part of this community really, really quickly. So, it certainly is exciting for the town.
JOURNALIST: That history certainly is an important part to this project.
DRAYTON: Yeah, it is. It is an important part. It's quite an iconic building. The building has been doing us people from Muswellbrook a favour for a long time. When people don't know where we live and they don't know where Muswellbrook is, you know, we say, listen, you can remember the big Oak building, and straight away they know where we live, and where we're from. It certainly is an iconic building.
JOURNALIST: Yes, and diversification too. Muswellbrook is more than just mines.
DRAYTON: Yes, it is, as Tim said, whether that be by necessity or what it might be at the moment, but certainly nothing has changed. Of course, you know, five years’ time, we will lose those 12,000 jobs. So, projects like this are extremely important. The 24 to 25 jobs announced, it might not seem a lot of jobs at the moment, but the economy that this project will bring to town, you have a marquee tourist destination like this, the money that it will bring into the town will be fantastic. It's just what the town needs. And there'll be many, many more jobs, of course, and certainly, a lot of other projects for this site. So, there'll be many, many more jobs, than the jobs announced this morning.
JOURNALIST: Tim, just a quick one. We know that the government has announced that money for the bypass for Muswellbrook, but a lot of other roads are going to need more infrastructure, especially as we head towards renewables and all and we'll see extra traffic through trucks bringing in goods and taking goods away from the distillery. Who's going to stump up the money there? Is it going to be left to council or state or federal?
SENATOR AYRES: Can I make a couple of points about this? Firstly, very welcome commitment from Catherine King and Anthony Albanese into the Muswellbrook Bypass. It's been slated for development for decade after decade after decade. It's the Albanese Government that is going to deliver that important road infrastructure. Secondly, there is enormous pressure on roads infrastructure in particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. More and more severe flooding events, pressure on the roads, I know that roads in the Northern Rivers, in particular, absolutely decimated by recent flooding. We're working hard with local government and state government. It is a massive road building program that's been undertaken at the moment. This is going to be a real challenge for future governments to climate proof our road system and we are determined to play out, not like the Morrison government, where the job of the Commonwealth Government under Scott Morrison—Peter Dutton says he wants to get back on track to the Morrison period—was about blaming state governments and local governments, pointing the fingers at everybody else, and looking for an argument around the country. We accept our responsibility to work collectively to deal with these challenges. Final thing I want to say is, one of the big pressures on the road sector around here, of course, is as we're building out the new electricity system, we're seeing wind towers coming in from the Port of Newcastle. It's a massive exercise, puts real pressure on our roads, and that is one of the reasons why we're determined to, as part of our Future Made in Australia plan, to build local to establish new factories building components for the electricity sector. And right across Australian manufacturing, new factories, reindustrialising our regional economies and diversifying so that we're more resilient and more secure and offering good jobs and apprenticeships for school leavers.
ENDS.
