Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the substantial, significant budget for Australian industry. This budget sets out a policy framework for Australian industry, manufacturing, energy and resources, skills and training, and science, not just for the forward years but for the decades ahead. It sets a clear path to sustainability, new investment and jobs growth, and provides new opportunities in markets for Australian ideas and products. Our approach underpins a new era for Australia which faces up to our challenges, embraces our strengths and accepts our responsibility for forging a new direction. We have the opportunity to reposition Australian industry towards the jobs and sectors of the future, while increasing the opportunity to advance value-adding manufacturing. This future will be built around new ways of sharing knowledge and know-how and greater links—I emphasise: greater links—between science, research and industry itself. In fact, we will be putting science and research at the centre of the Industry portfolio.

This budget represents the hard work of a government that will not shirk its responsibility to restore the nation's finances after Labor's debt and deficit disaster of the last six years; but it is also a budget that signals a clear new direction for Australian industry towards a future of new opportunities, new markets, new jobs and a new era of confidence in our ability and integrity. We have made it clear that no longer will industry policy be based around handouts, bandaid solutions and throwing around taxpayers' money willy-nilly without any strategic focus or long-term benefit to the nation.

Australian businesses are characterised by a world-class standard of entrepreneurship. We have a stellar record of sparking great ideas and turning those great ideas into real-world applications. We do our Australian businesses a great disservice if we advocate a handout or government led mentality. The government's role is to create the right policy framework and settings to unleash the creativity, ingenuity and practicality of Australians and their businesses. We have a role as a government to be the catalyst, not the gatekeeper.

We are investing in national productivity gains and skilled workers of the future through a $1.9 billion trade support loans scheme which will encourage apprentices to take up a trade but, far more importantly, to finish that trade. Fifty per cent completion rates are simply not acceptable, particularly for young people who need a future that is secure with the training they need. We want to turn out people who can take real jobs and have a secure future. We are putting in place a skills and training network that delivers the trained workers that Australian businesses are calling out for, not simply training young people for the sake of training.

As I mentioned, the government will be putting science and research at the centre of industry policy, and we are developing a strategic approach to science policy which will adopt a whole-of-government outlook to ensure that all portfolios work together to focus on our resources and delivering future jobs. That is all portfolios of government, not just my own very diverse portfolio.

The budget includes an investment of $1.4 billion in the resource sector, centred around the $100 million exploration development incentive, which is otherwise known as a flow-through shares scheme, something the Labor Party promised but in six years of government never delivered. We want to make it crystal clear that we support the energy and resources sector. It is one of our economy's most significant job drivers, and the private sector investment and national revenue of our country depends on it.

Beyond the big headlines, of course, we also want to support our communities by getting rid of the carbon tax, the mining tax and red and green tape. We want to stop the constant tax grabs we saw from those opposite during their time in government that attacked the resources sector as if it were an ATM, never giving it any credit or security for its future. Our government is about forging new links between industry research and science, and that is exactly what we will do.

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