SENATOR THE HON TIM AYRES
Minister for Industry and Innovation
Minister for Science
Senator for New South Wales
THE HON CHRIS BOWEN MP
Minister for Climate Change and Energy
Member for McMahon
Subjects: Announcement of campaign “Made Right Here”, US tariffs, Coalition/Nationals issues, Labor fundraiser dinner held in 2014.
CHRIS BOWEN, MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY, MEMBER FOR MCMAHON: Thanks for coming everyone. I didn't have far to come, welcome to my hometown. It's great to welcome my friend Tim Ayres to Smithfield where I live and represent, and one of the great pleasures of representing Smithfield is to represent the biggest industrial state in the southern hemisphere. And Tim's got an important announcement today to make. As a senior minister and a government focused on the economy, on jobs, on the best interests of Australians, while others are focused on themselves, our government remains focused on the task at hand. After yesterday's very encouraging unemployment figures and job creation figures we have more work to do, and Tim is announcing the next stage of that today. So it's great to welcome Tim Ayres to Smithfield today.
SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: Thanks very much Chris. It is a real pleasure to be here. I can tell you that over the 30 years that I've been engaged in Australian manufacturing, this bloke's house only three minutes’ drive from this industrial estate. Chris Bowen has been active in this industrial community. In and out of these factories ever since he grew up here as a mayor, as a councillor, as a local member and as a minister, an active MP engaged with blue collar industry here, as he says, in the largest industrial estate in the southern hemisphere. What we're here to do today inside the factory here is to launch, backed by the Albanese Government, a $20 million campaign about Australian Made, called ‘Made Right Here’, that is there to say to households buy Australian. It's a reminder to Australians and Australian families of the advantages of buying products made right here. For every $10 in aggregate that Australian households spend on Australian made products that's an extra 10,000 jobs. That's an extra $5 billion in economic activity.
The Albanese Government has the biggest pro-manufacturing policy agenda of any Australian government in Australian history. And today with this campaign, that was announced as part of our overall program of responses to the tariffs announced by the US administration last year, this campaign is saying to Australians, we can all play a part. We can all buy Australian and it will make our economy stronger and deliver good blue-collar jobs in suburbs like this, in outer suburban areas and in our big industrial regions. Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Minister Ayres, at Davos the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney talked about how economic integration is being used as a tool of coercion. Do you agree with that thesis and is your reference there to tariffs from the US an indication that this program is aimed at disentangling the from US and that coercion?
AYRES: It's certainly not about disentanglement. Australia is a trading nation. One in four of our private sector jobs are dependent upon trade. If you worked in a firm that is trade exposed, trades with the world, you're likely to have higher wages and better job security. So we're a government that's for trade. But we're also about building economic resilience. About diversifying not just who Australia trades with, but diversifying the products and services that we offer the world because it's good for jobs now, it's good for jobs in the future, but it's also about economic resilience and I've obviously paid attention to speeches being made by world leaders over the course of the last few days and they underscore the message that the Albanese Government has had since day one. We're all about trade. We're all about open markets. But we're also about building economic resilience and strengthening our manufacturing sector.
JOURNALIST: Do you agree with this critique that Donald Trump is throwing the US's economic weight around?
AYRES: Well as you'll have seen, Paul, we don't offer a sort of running commentary upon the announcements and policies of other governments including our partners and strategic partners around the world. We approach that government of the United States has taken is not a surprise to us and what we've been doing as a government is being focused on whether it's trade barriers imposed by some of our trading partners, tariffs being applied around the world, our job as a government is to strengthen Australia's economy to make it more diverse and to make Australia more economically resilient because that's in the interests of jobs, but it's also in our national economic and our broader national interest.
JOURNALIST: What do you make of yesterday's Coalition chaos?
AYRES: I think Minister Bowen might have a few things to say about this as well. I just say, I have watched with utter dismay over the course of the last five or six weeks. If the approach that the Coalition has taken to, whether it's what occurred in Bondi or a whole series of other national interests, it is the inevitable consequence of the Liberals and Nationals putting the party interest first before the national interest. These people, the Liberals and Nationals can't put Australia first, they are always putting the Liberal and National interest first. They didn't learn the lesson of the Morrison Government that if you put the party interest first and the country interest second, Australians mark it down. And we saw that the worst expression of that is yesterday. The Day of Mourning when Australians were focussed upon sending our loving solidarity to the Jewish Australian community, pulling together, what were these guys doing? Twenty-four interviews talking about themselves in a toxic dumpster fire. These are not parties of government. These are parties that are focused upon themselves and their own toxic politics.
BOWEN: I’ll just add to Tim’s very fine words. Australians deserve better than this psychodrama from the Coalition. Yesterday was the National Day of Mourning and they chose to spend the day mauling each other. Now, this is about more than Sussan Ley and David Littleproud. Both of their leaderships are now unsalvageable. Their leaderships are unsalvageable. It's about more than those two individuals. The entire Liberal and National parties are parties of hubris. They spent every day after the tragic events of Bondi calling for Parliament to be recalled. When we recalled Parliament and put well-crafted legislation before the Parliament to deal with hate speech and gun laws, what did they do? They turned on themselves instead of turning to the Australian people. These people, all of them, not Sussan Ley and David Littleproud alone, all of them are unfit for government. They are hate speech hypocrites calling for the Parliament to deal with hate speech and then being caught like a kangaroo in headlights when we actually put legislation before the Parliament. These guys are a national joke, unfit for office and they should be ashamed of their behaviour yesterday.
JOURNALIST: Rumours of a leadership spill coming soon, would you welcome that?
BOWEN: We're focused on the job. As I said, both of their leaderships are unsalvageable. I mean, David Littleproud, the former Deputy Leader of the Coalition, is attacking Sussan Ley and the Liberals are openly telling every journalist who will listen, and I'm sure yourselves, that David Littleproud is a liar. I mean, that psychodrama is a matter for them. We'll deal with whoever is the leader of the Liberal Party and the National Party but my broader point is that both parties, are unfit for office, they're all as bad as each other, mauling each other on the National Day of Mourning instead of being focused on the task at hand for Australians. The Parliament needs all parties working and focused on the people, the government most primarily as we are, but also the Opposition.
JOURNALIST: Mr Bowen, the focus on your social media show you attended the 12 September 2014 fundraiser at Sunny Seafood for Chris Minns’ Kogarah campaign. Do you remember how many people attended that event?
CHRIS BOWEN: I attend many dinners. You're asking about a dinner many years ago. I attend many Labor Party fundraisers. I recall it vaguely as a large event, but I have no clue or recollection and Premier Minns has dealt with all of this.
JOURNALIST: The ABC has reported that the Australian China Daily said that there were nearly 200 people in attendance. Does that sound right?
BOWEN: It was a long time ago. I attend many dinners.
JOURNALIST: It's been a tough month for your boss. Are you relieved that the conversation has shifted back to the imploding Coalition rather than criticism of the Prime Minister?
BOWEN: Look, as I said, the Prime Minister's been focused every day since Bondi on the task at hand. I'm a member of the National Security Committee, the Cabinet and I've been involved in meetings almost every day. I can tell you he has been focused like a laser on the task at hand. Bringing Australians together at this most difficult moment in our history, and dealing with personal attacks of the most disgusting nature, not just the Prime Minister, disgusting attacks on Penny Wong and the government more broadly, it turns out that it was all hollow words and hypocrisy by the Opposition and I think that has now been shown starkly to the Australian people. Every word they said after Bondi were just hollow words and incompetence.
JOURNALIST: Surely you guys would be maybe jumping for joy or just rubbing your hands together a little bit at this?
BOWEN: Focused on the job. Here we are. We're happy to deal with your questions but it's not what Tim and I were talking about. We're talking about creating Australians jobs here in the largest industrial state in the southern hemisphere right across the country.
JOURNALIST: Minister Bowen, disclosures to the New South Wales electoral commission state that $5760 gross was raised from that September 2014 fundraiser. How can the fundraiser that you've just described as large, raise so little?
BOWEN: I understand, this has been dealt with extensively in the New South Wales Parliament. I understand the relevant authorities have looked at it. The Premier has dealt with it. I attended, doesn't mean I was involved in the organisation of it. I can't tell you how much money was raised. We attend all sorts of dinners, doesn't mean we're involved in the organisation.
JOURNALIST: Were you ever asked about ICAC or the event?
BOWEN: No. Well apart from you just now.
JOURNALIST: What's the basis for saying it was fully investigated?
BOWEN: Well, that's what I've read in the media.
JOURNALIST: Are you worried about a threat on your right from One Nation now that the Coalition has kind of imploded?
BOWEN: As I said this is a psychodrama of the former Coalition and the National Party has deciding that they need to move further to the extreme right to deal with One Nation. I mean that's their call. We're here focused on the job at hand. People are thinking about who to vote for at the next election, they'll think about which party is focused on the job at hand of creating jobs, creating a stronger more secure economy, I can tell you, that's not One Nation. It's not the National Party. It's not the Liberal Party. It's the Australian Labor Party.
JOURNALIST: Minister Ayres, you said the US announcements on tariffs were not a surprise to us. Was it really not a surprise that they threatened retaliation through the tariffs because NATO allies to Greenland said should remain in Denmark, did you really have that on your 2026 bingo card?
AYRES: There is a series of announcements over the course of the last 12 months in relation to trade policy. And the US administration, and there's a series of countervailing announcements that have happened around the world. What I'm referring to is the broader approach that the US administration has taken. I make the point that we are operating in an environment of trade volatility, where there's increasing protectionism around the world and it is the responsible thing for an Australian government that's focused on the national interest to make sure that our economy is more resilient, that we're diversifying the economies within the trade, and the goods and services that Australian firms and Australian workers offer the world because that's in the interests of good jobs in our regions and suburbs and it's also in the interests of our national economic resilience.
Thanks team, very good. Thank you.
ENDS.
