SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: Really pleased to be here at Capral Aluminium. This facility is in Penrith in Sydney’s western suburbs. It’s one of many facilities, in almost every state, where Capral aluminium has Australian workers making Australian aluminium-extruded products out of Australian aluminium.
It is very good news that the Albanese Government, in response to a recommendation from the Anti-Dumping Commissioner, is imposing a fresh round of duties on dumped products into the Australian market. That makes businesses like this more competitive. It means that they’re not fighting against unfairly dumped products.
Dumping means products being imported into Australia at unfair prices below market value. That puts Australian businesses out of business. I am determined to make sure that we’re deploying our whole anti-dumping capability to deliver a Future Made in Australia and to protect the interests of Australian firms and Australian manufacturers who are working hard every day to produce Australian products onshore here, in our suburbs and in our regions.
I’ve moved to make sure that we’re consolidating our anti-dumping regime, making it more modern, more fit for purpose in a chaotic and more difficult global trading environment for Australian firms. That means strengthening anti-dumping rules to make life fairer for Australian manufacturers, to strengthen our suburbs, to strengthen our regions. Strong anti-dumping provisions means stronger suburbs and stronger regions for Australia.
Happy to take some questions from a person who’s going to come in from telephone immediately to my left.
JOURNALIST: Thank you for taking my call. [Inaudible] a fresh round of duties, or just strengthening laws, in what ways are these being strengthened? What are the changes?
AYRES: Today’s decision means additional duties imposed on imported products that are unfairly subsidised and are arriving in Australia’s markets at below-market value. That means firms like Capral Aluminium, and the competitors who they have worked with to bring forward this action, will get a fairer deal, and they can make investments in the future with confidence, knowing that they are on a more level playing field.
We have moved as a government, in an announcement that I made with the Treasurer and Trade Minister just a few weeks ago, to consolidate all of Australia’s anti-dumping regulation under the Anti-Dumping Commissioner in my portfolio. And we’ll introduce legislation to the Parliament next year that will achieve that objective. But it’s also an opportunity to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to deliver a strong, tough Australian anti-dumping regime that means stronger suburbs and stronger regions, and a stronger manufacturing sector.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] Has there been any further discussion about the [inaudible] future of that facility?
AYRES: Well, Sussan Ley and the Liberals and Nationals are at Tomago doing politics. I’m here today in Western Sydney delivering anti-dumping, working hard on the future of Australian manufacturing. We will continue to engage. The Albanese Government, the NSW Government and Rio Tinto, over the future of that facility. It is a really important facility for Australia. I’m determined to keep working with Rio Tinto to make sure there is no stone left unturned as we focus on that facility’s future viability.
Tomago is part of Australia’s aluminium smelting capability. Boyne Island in Queensland, going from strength to strength under this government and the $2 billion Green Aluminium Production Credit regime that we announced earlier this year. Tough challenges in the Hunter Valley for Tomago Aluminium. We are continuing to work through the challenges that the Bell Bay Aluminium smelter in facing.
As Australians have seen, this is a government that is not afraid to intervene in the interests of Australian manufacturing. We’ve intervened to protect Whyalla steel, in the interests of Australian steel. We’ve intervened in Port Pirie and Hobart to protect our smelting sector more broadly. And intervened in Mount Isa to protect Australia’s fourth largest industrial precinct where they’re making copper out of Australian copper ore into Australian copper products. We will keep working on this question in a disciplined kind of way. I’ll leave the politics to Sussan Ley.
JOURNALIST: Are you any closer to finding a solution [inaudible].
AYRES: There are discussions about the future of Tomago Aluminium every day and every week. There have been since the moment that I was appointed as industry minister, and before that in the previous government. This is an intense set of discussions. A successful resolution to this will require the Commonwealth, the New South Wales Government, and the owner, all contributing to the future of that facility and equal partnership and co-investment from the owners. These are difficult discussions in a very challenging global trading environment for the aluminium sector. I am not predicting an outcome here. It is a very uncertain outcome. We’re going to keep working away in the Australian national interest.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] What is the government doing to assist producers in that respect?
AYRES: Australian manufacturing, particularly Australian heavy industry, requires confidence about electricity, about gas, about all of the other input prices. The future for Australian industry, is all about modernising our electricity system. We’ll need capacity generation and transmission to increase the volumes of electricity that are required now, but also as our industry electrifies, magnitudes more wind power, solar power, transmission to our industrial heartlands. That means getting behind the process being led by Chris Bowen, which is the lowest cost electricity system for Australia.
We’ve, of course, come to government after a decade where 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations announced their closure under the Morrison, Turnbull and Abbott Governments. Nothing was done to replace that capacity. Just hang on a moment. Ten years of Morrison and Turnbull and Abbott Government inaction in our electricity system has a real-life consequence today as we’re fighting to make up for those ten lost years and rebuild a modern Australian electricity system at the lowest possible cost, to provide competitive electricity for the future.
That does mean businesses like Tomago are facing tough and uncertain challenges at the moment. We're working with them to try and work our way through. We've done it in other sections of Australian heavy industry. It's going to be up to Tomago and the other partners as they work with us to try and find a solution. Sorry, I'll let you ask that question again, if you like.
JOURNALIST: [Question inaudible].
AYRES: There is, of course, a contrast here. Just let me start that again. It's a noisy site because it's a working site.
Where Australian manufacturers have been able to secure electricity contracts [and] gas contracts over the long term, what we're seeing in Queensland, for example, is the Boyne Island aluminium smelter owned by Rio Tinto, underwriting wind projects, underwriting solar projects, supporting more transmission and more grid security with a strong, viable manufacturing future.
One of the reasons that I'm here announcing anti-dumping duties to make Australian industry more competitive is that you can see in this aluminium facility here, right alongside where I'm talking to you now, anti-dumping duties mean a more competitive company with more confidence to invest in the automation, in the new technology, in the research and development that delivers a stronger Future Made in Australia.
We're going to work uphill and down dale, whether it's on energy costs, whether it's on research and development, whether it's on anti-dumping reform, whether it's on supporting future production with production credits and production tax credits to build a Future Made in Australia. It's a tough fight. It's not linear progress. It does mean that we are going to face real challenges, but we're going to keep doing it in the Australian national interest, and we're going to leave the cheap politics to the Liberals and Nationals who are focused upon themselves, focused upon their own ideological conflicts, and not on the real issues that matter for Australia and Australia.
Thank you. Thanks very much.
ENDS.
