SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: It’s a really lovely welcome, actually. There’s so much for us to do together in this really important Australian industrial region. And when Alison rang and asked, I was absolutely delighted to accept the invitation. I think this is in the work that I’ve done with you, Alison, but also with the members of the Gladstone Engineering Alliance (GEA) as being very important to me and to the government as we’ve approached the task of revitalising Australia’s manufacturing capability for all the reasons that I’m going to in a moment. But it’s also – I also should just say that Alison and the leadership of GEA, you’ve got something really precious here in Gladstone. That organisation that you’ve nurtured over many years of the engineering supply chain around these great industrial facilities and around the mining sector is just gold, really, for this region.
Having a collective say over the future of this industrial economy can’t just happen by itself; it needs good organisation from firms, from the trade union movement, from local government, from big industry, from – in my view as well, and maybe I’ll come to some of these issues in a moment – the investment community as well to really make it work.
And you can see as you get around the country where that’s happening and where it’s not. In Central Queensland you’ve got something to be really proud of and something to fight for. So I really want to acknowledge Alison and GEA’s work.
I want to acknowledge, of course, the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet, and I know that there are a number – I see Cori Stewart from the ARM Hub here, Warren Jansen from the Industry Capability Network, Warwick Squire, who I think is speaking with me later today from Coexistence Queensland, Matt McKee from Beyond Zero Emissions. You’ve got a very good – the Net Zero Economy Authority is here, the Northern Australian Infrastructure Fund is here. You’ve got a good audience for this discussion. And I really want you to make the very most of yesterday and today.
I was really pleased to hear that Scott Harrington – who I think has ducked down to Brisbane for a bit of work today – got that award. I think it’s a lifetime achievement award or a Hall of Fame Award from Extreme Engineering. One of the things that I really paid attention to when I was last here was listening to Extreme Engineering and their account and Scott’s account of the investment that they are making as a medium-size enterprise in investment, in apprentice training and in engaging an apprentice master. These old-fashioned terms that I remember from when I was a kid. An apprentice master to look after these young people, young girls and boys, from local schools taking up apprenticeships. That is real leadership right there for manufacturing and for engineering. And it’s important they’ve made that investment. Of course, we want to see everybody, including the big players – the big players as well – make those investments.
This place, Gladstone, in Central Queensland actually tells you a lot about the Australian story post the arrival of Europeans in this part of the world. A history up until the 20th century of agriculture, being transformed into mining and manufacturing, heavy industry, extraordinarily capital-intensive skilled blue-collar engineering and industrial work. And the first quarter of the 21st century, opening up of the port, the industrial facilities here, really opening up to the world, coal, alumina, aluminium, cement, chemicals, LNG. A good place for investment, industrial investment, but also a good place for blue-collar and engineering work and a good place for people to bring families to grow up.
It's a place that has everything and is worth fighting for. It’s the fifth largest multicommodity port in Australia. Six gas processing trains that have cemented Australia’s position in global markets as one of the world’s largest LNG exporters providing energy security for our trade partners – Korea and Japan and everywhere around the world – as they go through their own big industrial transformations to a low emissions industrial system.
Of course, domestic gas supply and price is also very much in focus in 2025. The Albanese government has commissioned Chris Bowen and Madeleine King to lead a process that, of course, I’m very much engaged in, to secure domestic gas supply for Australian heavy industry to make sure that we’ve got supply for heavy industry, to make sure that we’ve got it at prices that allows for further investment, competitiveness today but further investment for tomorrow in heavy industry.
And we’re working through – I don’t want to pre-empt the outcomes of that process. Plenty of people are anyway, so I’ll let them do that. We want to work through these issues carefully, methodically, in a disciplined kind of way to make sure that we get the right outcome. But I’m absolutely focused on the critical role that gas plays for those heavy industrial users. And I’m focused on that, of course, because my job is to deliver the kind of coordination and impact that is required to make that Future Made in Australia agenda really work for outer suburban Australia and for our big industrial regions.
The Prime Minister made it very clear to me when I was appointed, it’s not my job to draft volumes of new policy papers – thank God – it’s not my job to dream up too many big new ideas, although there’s a bit of work to do. We have the biggest pro-manufacturing package in Australian history, this government. If you put together the $22.7 billion in Future Made in Australia, the National Reconstruction Fund, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, what we’re committed to doing in the big task of modernising our energy and our electrical and our gas systems, this is a giant task that – and a giant opportunity for Australia.
My job is to align our industrial policy and those systems to deliver the most impact. And Queensland and Queensland resources and industry are central to the Albanese Government’s vision for this important piece of work on behalf of the country. Queensland is central. That’s why when you look at Queensland mining products, copper ore, for example, mined by junior miners all across North West Queensland, smelted in Mount Isa, processed into pure copper metal in regional Queensland in Townsville, you know, with the connections that that has to ammonia facilities, to all sorts of production opportunities, you know, that region just to the north west of here is absolutely crucial for our industrial future.
You saw the announcement just a week ago. I was in Mount Isa with the Queensland Mining and Manufacturing Minister Dale Last to announce a $600 million commitment to the Mount Isa smelter. And I’ll have a little bit more to say about that in a moment. But resources are absolutely central to our vision for the future of Queensland manufacturing.
Of course – of course – we’ve announced as well recently our emissions reduction targets for Australian industry and for the Australian economy. Again, of course, that is mobilised by three things really: firstly, Australia has got its role to play – more to lose and more to gain than many other economies – around these challenges of climate and energy. Australia has to play its part in order to contribute to global emissions reduction targets.
And if you look at our agriculture sector and our mining sectors, our coastal communities, we have more to lose than many other jurisdictions around the world. But with 97 per cent of our trading partners – and there’ll be a bit of backwards and forwards around the world as people grapple with targets and go backwards and go forwards – 97 per cent of our trading partners, some of them readying their economies to impose sanctions on industrial processes that aren’t decarbonising, it is absolutely vital for the future of Australian industry that we set credible targets, ambitious targets, achievable targets and provide policy certainty so that the investment community can get behind the work of backing in industry.
It's not a choice between the past and the future for a community like this. Underpinning all of that is the commitment that I made along with Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese a few weeks ago of $5 billion in the Net Zero Fund to support businesses who are changing their energy processes.
But I want to make a few comments about what is happening here. What I see – as I struggle with some of the notes and the changes that I made on the plane on the way here – what I see is industry here really focused on the task at hand. Rio has already secured 2.2 gigawatts of renewable energy through power purchase agreements here in Queensland. That is a Queensland and Australian achievement delivering more security for the future of the Boyne facility, which is the centre of Gladstone’s industrial economy.
In aluminium today electricity is everything. In tomorrow’s aluminium, low-cost, reliable, close-to-zero emissions electricity will be everything. And these Queensland investments led by Rio put Queensland front and centre of the Albanese government’s Future Made in Australia agenda for aluminium, and I’ll be making some more announcements about that at the Boyne plant later on today.
If you’ve been around manufacturing for as long as I have – and it’s sort of a bit of a while now – you can see the danger signs in and around major facilities around the country. It’s about the investments in energy or maintenance, infrastructure or new capability that are not made that start – it’s the quietness that starts to send the danger sign about the future viability of major industrial facilities like those that are the sort of cornerstone of the industrial economy here. And that’s why seeing these kinds of investments, this kind of conference, gives me some real confidence that we’ve got a fighting chance here in Central Queensland to deliver future investment and future jobs and future industry.
The $2 billion Green Aluminium Production Credit that we announced in January is part of us putting our shoulder behind the wheel, crucial in providing a clear set of investment signals to that sector about the pathway to future investment and future capability. I’m really pleased – and I announced out at the facility there. You know, don’t run out on Sky now and tell the world straight away – but I will be announcing later on today at the facility that we will fast track the design process for that. It will open as of today. We will conclude that process very quickly with the credit available to industry from 2028 and 2029.
I also want to say a few things about the position that Australian manufacturing is in today. This is a time of intense global competition for industrial investment, of opportunity and risk in the global shift to lower emissions industry, of technological challenge and change. None of this is easy work. None of it is easy work. And Australian government, workers and industry have an important and, I think, consequential decade in front of us, of work together, of cooperation in front of all of us.
And ensuring that our approach to putting Australian firms on a level playing field means delivering a fit-for-purpose modern anti-dumping regime and trade remedy system that makes sure that we’ve got a modern Australian capability to work for Australian industry where there’s unfair trade, over subsidisation, dumping and unfair trade practices.
And we’re seeing more of that as a consequence of global trade volatility, overcapacity in some markets, tariff responses by others. We are – as a country we are not a closed economy country. Gladstone says that about our industrial future. It’s enmeshed in global markets. It’s not about trade barriers. But, by the same token, we will remain an open market economy facing the world, but by the same token, we need the tools to be able to respond to unfair trade and market practices vigorously on behalf of Australian industry.
Anti-dumping reform really matters. We announced just a few weeks ago, alongside the Treasurer and the trade minister, reforms to strengthen the capacity of the Anti-Dumping Commission and consolidating responsibilities right across the trade remedy system with a modern, properly funded, well-resourced Anti-Dumping Commissioner. And while that reform is going to take legislation – and I’ll be out and about talking to industry about the kind of additional changes we need to make to toughen up that regime and make sure it does the job that it needs to do for Australian industry – really pleased to say that the new statement of expectations and that lift in ambition and confidence means that that work that the Anti-Dumping Commissioner has been doing has been gathering pace. And I can tell you that the volume of ministerial signoffs on anti-dumping orders and imposing duties on unfairly produced goods from overseas has increased dramatically over the last few weeks and months. That’s important work.
Of course, on gas prices, our targeted market interventions helped reduce gas prices from their 2022 highs. But we know that there’s a lot further to go. That gas market review is really important. Engage with it, have your say about it. This is our opportunity to make some real change.
Of course, locally here the national hydrogen strategy released last year outlines the case for backing renewable hydrogen as well as the other industrial processes that we’re going to need for our industrial future. And there’s a lot of commentary in the city papers, I have to say, about this issue. One of the things that worries me about our political debate around manufacturing is that there’s an awful lot of talking Australian manufacturing down. And on big ventures that require risk, that require financial commitments, that where there is technological uncertainty, that tendency – and if you allow me to make a slightly partisan observation - particularly in the Liberal and National parties at the moment to talk Australia and Australian capability down in order to try and secure some partisan advantage or to sort of talk to the sort of talking points that come from sort of overseas politics on these questions, that is a real problem.
So, in areas like hydrogen there are sections of our press and our political system that, if a hydrogen venture fails or stalls, they act like its Christmas. There’s sort of fist pumps, it’s fantastic, it proves that they were right. When a hydrogen venture goes well, it’s like someone ran over the family cat. Like that’s not the Australian way. We actually have to back each other. We are facing up to a tough world out there where the pathway, for example, for lifting our capability to move from our extraordinary capacity in iron ore mining, extraordinary technology, extraordinary jobs, but with a future at risk, as global markets make it tougher for our iron ore sector, what we must do as a government is support industry to lift that industry up the value chain.
And that requires a whole-of-country effort from industry, from our science sector, from our private industrial research and development sector, from the CSIRO, from our CRCs. Right across my portfolio from science through to the industrial work, that requires real cooperation and real accountability where the technological pathways are uncertain, and the business models and the business cases need all of that work. But the alternative is to sit on our hands and lose.
We are not up for that in the Albanese Government. We are up for Australians working together in the national interest to secure Australia’s future competitive advantage to make sure that this country is more economically resilient, with more industrial diversity, more blue-dollar and engineering jobs in regional centres like this, more of our scientific capability and our research and development, whether it’s in heavy industry, whether it’s in artificial intelligence or quantum, whether it’s in our broader manufacturing sector, when Australian ideas and inventions and new modes of production are developed here, this government wants to see them made here, to focus on what is in the national interest for Australia, what is our future competitive advantage.
How do we make sure that as a country that has all of the critical minerals and the strategic metals that the world needs for our future industrial processes, whether it’s in communication or computer chips or defence or renewable technologies, they are all here in Australia. We have vast amounts of space – vast amounts of space. We have proximity to the fastest growing markets in human history on our doorstep. We have vast reserves of solar and wind which is what the world wants and what the world needs and what the world will demand from industry. It’s our job to shape that future for the country.
And that, in my view – call it naïve – should involve everybody. Yes, across industry, I’m so confident about where Australian business is at on these questions, where the trade union movement is at on these questions. Now I want to see more coordination across our universities and CSIROs and our CRCs. I want to see more of that, but I’m confident that they’re up for it. I’d like to have a little bit of confidence about what’s going on across the parliament and to see everybody actually pulling. We’re not immune from criticism. We should be criticised on delivery. When we get it wrong, we’ll put our hand up, this government, when we get it wrong or when we’re not going fast enough. But actually, we should all be pointing in the same direction in the national interest on these questions.
And that’s why gatherings like this in a place like Gladstone, with a bit of fighting Queensland spirit and a bit of capability and experience and industrial history and depth, that’s why coming to places like this, talking to you for a few minutes and listening to you, visiting your facilities, seeing the excellence that you bring gives me real confidence that we can go to schools in places like this and talk to girls and boys about careers in engineering, about careers in the trades, about a hopeful future, high-tech heavy industry right across the economy that includes every part of this great country.
It's been a real pleasure for me to get an opportunity to talk to what is a bigger group than all the groups that I’ve talked to before, Alison. There’s more people at the town – at the Gladstone Entertainment Centre than when the Wiggles came here last, I think. This is an extraordinary conference, an extraordinary achievement. Go hard. Make sure you make the most of yesterday and today and this amazing Gladstone Engineering Alliance that offers so much to the community. Well done and thank you.
