MERYL SWANSON, MEMBER FOR PATERSON: We are here at one of the Hunter’s and Australia's greatest success stories, Ampcontrol. This company was born out of providing electricity and lighting for underground coal mining. Today we are standing at a facility that employs over 900 people here, but broadly right across Australia and it is exporting to the world, some of the technologies that serve our region today and making way for the future. It is a bright shining light for the future of the Hunter, what we can do in the Hunter, what we can make in the Hunter, and how the Hunter continues to lead not only a Future Made in Australia but the world's future. And I'm so pleased to have Senator Tim Ayres, the Assistant Minister for a Future Made in Australia in the Hunter here today. And just before I go to Tim, I have to make some comments about Peter Dutton and him saying that the Hunter is done. Well, let me tell you the Hunter ain't done Dutton. We have only just begun. We have been powering our region and the eastern coast of Australia for decades and we are going to continue to because of people that are here in our region, people that make places like Ampcontrol the success it is. We are an incredible region. Our future is so bright and if you think that you can blackmail our region and say we're done unless we sign up for your dodgy nuclear reactor somewhere down the track, then mate you don't deserve to be Prime Minister of anywhere quite frankly. I am absolutely enraged by those comments. How dare a man who wants to be the Prime Minister of Australia say that the powerhouse of our region, of our state, and our country is done? It's offensive and it's rude. Sorry, Tim, but you can't let that go.
 
SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE: Tim Ayres, I am the Assistant Minister for a Future Made Australia and Assistant Minister for Trade. Firstly, thank you to Rod Henderson and the team from Ampcontrol for welcoming us here today. It's not my first time at Ampcontrol. Employing around 900 Hunter Valley Australians doing some of the most innovative manufacturing in engineering that's available in Australia. It's an opportunity to step out the Albanese Government's response to the Trump Administration's announcement of tariffs. And I want to step out the implications of some of that for the Hunter Valley are very quickly. The 10% tariff announcement is a very unwelcome development, but Australia has achieved the best outcome of any economy in the world. Nobody has done better than Australia. That was not a foregone conclusion. The Albanese Government will continue to work hard to improve the position for Australian exporters and has announced a package of measures: stronger local content provisions to ensure that Australian government projects are using Australian steel and Australian aluminium, including the aluminium made right over there at Tomago Aluminium. $1 billion dollars in funding for Australian firms seeking access to new export markets to supercharge Australian manufacturers, finding their way to export markets. The Prime Minister has also announced that we are going to put the shoulder behind the wheel and make further reforms and build additional capacity in terms of our anti-dumping regime, so that firms like Ampcontrol or Tomago Aluminium, where they identify dumping, don't die waiting for an anti-dumping determination. And the final measure that is critical here is the Critical Mineral Strategic Reserve announced by the Albanese Government to make sure that we are playing the strongest hand possible in terms of critical minerals. We are in a very strong position internationally because of our reserves of critical minerals, the capability of our mining sector and the Albanese Government's ambition to ensure that we're processing and adding value to those critical minerals here in Australia and here in the Hunter. Yesterday's response from the Opposition Leader, before I join with what Meryl had to say about his unfortunate references to the Hunter Valley today, his press conference was a very confusing press conference indeed. Just when we need clarity from all elements of the political system and being on the Team Australia, all Peter Dutton would do was carve criticism and negativity. A sort of coulda-woulda-shoulda position about how he believes that somehow, miraculously, he's got some divine capacity to be able to achieve more than any other country achieved. Trying to diminish the Australian achievement once again, to undermine our Washington team who have worked so hard and to undermine their future efforts on behalf of Australia. He also seemed quite confused about the impact of these tariff announcements on Australian beef. The truth is that there are no bans on Australian beef entering the United States market. None. There is a 10% tariff that applies that means actually Australian beef entering the United States market, operates now at a comparative advantage to some of our competitors. We're still opposed to a 10% tariff, but it's a huge mistake from the Leader of the Opposition to be either pretending that there's a ban or believing that there is one when it isn't. We're going to carefully examine the impact of these tariffs for Australian exporters. For example, as the Trade Minister has pointed out, Australian wine now operates at a competitive advantage in the United States market because our level of tariff is lower than the EU's level of tariff. I want it to be zero. The Prime Minister wants it to be zero. That's what should be reflected consistent with decent international practice. We don't think this is the act of a friend, but wandering around hyperventilating it, pretending that you could reach a better outcome helps no one. It is just calculated in the heat of the election campaign to create some small partisan advantage, and I think Australians see through that. Finally, I saw Peter Dutton's comments on morning television this morning. Here we are at Ampcontrol where Australians are working together to meet the challenges of big changes in the global accord to position Australia and Australian workers and Australian firms in the right place to make sure we win the battle for future jobs and future investment. There is nowhere you would rather be than Australia and nowhere in Australia in industrial terms you would rather be than the Hunter Valley. But Peter Dutton, who is a walking oxymoron with a megaphone, is out trying to make Hunter Valley people feel bad and hopeless in order to try and push through with a no solutions or problems partisan campaign in this election. Hunter Valley people won't put up with this, but what we actually need to do is recognise that we all play a role in working together doing the hard work over decades to secure investment to make new things, to invent new product, to develop new engineering solutions, to create new jobs. That's what we're doing. That's why the Albanese government has the Future Made in Australia program, which is the biggest pro-manufacturing package in Australian history and areas like the Hunter Valley, the energy capital of Australia, the industrial capability capital of Australia, are well poised to make sure that we emerge winners in this race for new technology and new jobs. After all that, happy to take any questions? 
 
JOURNALIST: Before you spend the afternoon having a quick little tour of the manufacturing here, what are some of the things that Ampcontrol have mentioned to you that they'd like to see in the Future Made in Australia? 
 
SENATOR AYRES: Well, could I just make a couple of points about that? Firstly, I haven't done the tour yet. I'm about to do the tour so I don't want to spoil the surprise. But this is a company that is developing engineering solutions, in vehicles, in transporting, in all sorts of technology, for the mining industry, for the energy sector, they have been putting their shoulder to the wheel in terms of research and development. Future Made in Australia, the National Reconstruction Fund, our broad position in a pro-manufacturing in an Albanese Government, is to make sure that that development continues to happen here in Australia. I would just like one point that I've forgotten to make about what Peter Dutton said this morning, if I may. His only solution for the Hunter Valley is a 1.2-gigawatt nuclear reactor imposed on a community that doesn't want it that will start producing powered best case in 2045 and will cost as part of their package $600 billion of taxpayer money that means cuts to Medicare and cuts to all sorts of public services. Just this morning the New South Wales Government announced a 4.5-gigawatt renewable energy zone in the central west of New South Wales that will be producing four times as much electricity in 2028. Powering millions of homes and hundreds of manufacturing businesses. The Hunter Valley needs solutions now and needs to work off the back of decades of experience and effort now, not nonsense and political propaganda and slogans that at best will deliver in 2045 at great cost to ordinary Australians. And I'm happy to go back to your other questions now.
 
JOURNALIST: Essentially what you are saying those in the mining sector, for example, in the Hunter Valley, would have more of a reassurance that they will be able to go into the energy sector as opposed to waiting 20 years to wait to go into nuclear. So, you're saying that there's an easy transition for those workers? 
 
SENATOR AYRES: We are seeing jobs being created now. Electricity generation being delivered now. Transmission capability that we need to secure the future of Tomago Aluminium just over there. That's the real work about delivering jobs and investment and economic opportunity. Leaving these issues to 2045, with a solution that only deters investment and produces electricity that's too expensive for Australia, is no solution for the challenges of now and the next few decades. We are all about industrial diversification, reindustrialising the Australian economy and putting new factories and new capability in great industrial estates like this. We're going to continue with our shoulder behind the wheel, but we won't be talking to Hunter Valley down in the process, like Peter Dutton did. 
 
JOURNALIST: Given the current global climate, how important is a manufacturing Future Made in Australia? 

SENATOR AYRES: Well, what you saw when we came to government was a very clear sign of geopolitical conflict and competition in our region, a land war in Europe, emerging protectionism amongst our trading partners that is not in Australia's interest. And that's why at the time we worked hard to dismantle trade barriers with our largest trading partner in China and we did that work carefully and successfully. But the message from the Trade Minister and the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister is very clear. Australia needs to diversify. We can't have all of our eggs in one basket in trading terms and that means opening up new markets, but it also means diversifying the goods and services that we offer the world, becoming more self-sufficient and more industrially capable. That's why we've developed the Future Made in Australia plan that is all about reindustrialising our economy and bringing manufacturing back. Now, I've heard the Liberals talk about manufacturing as if it wasn't them who offshored the car industry and lost 40,000 jobs. I have heard Andrew Constance, who is the Liberal's candidate for Gilmore, ninth time around, talk about manufacturing as if it wasn't him to offshore thousands of Hunter Valley jobs to South Korea and Spain and China and India. His manufacturing strategy was anywhere but Australia when it came to train contracts and bus contracts. We've got a different approach. We've brought back train manufacturing in cooperation with each of the states. We're rebuilding transport manufacturing more broadly and we have the biggest pro-manufacturing package in Australian history that will deliver for the Hunter Valley more than any other regional economy in Australia. Thanks very much.

ENDS.