GREG JENNETT: Well, Ed Husic, for the first time as an actual Minister, Industry and Science. You're joining us back in the Afternoon Briefing studio. Congratulations. Personal reflections on the achievement. It must sit heavy as a responsibility and an achievement.

ED HUSIC: Yeah. Look, you're absolutely right. It is something I've thought a lot about. There is a way to responsibility and expectation in terms of what we want to do, but also balance with some enthusiasm. We want to apply energy to getting things done. So it's really good that way. If I can confess to you and the viewers, I often wondered, post-2019, would we be the generation that could do it, like form government? Because our predecessors and especially the worst example, '49 through to '72. There are a lot of Labor politicians that never got the opportunity to be in government, and I really hope that we would have that chance to do it. And now we've been given it and now we got to get to work.

GREG JENNETT: A lot of chat among colleagues, but even from the Prime Minister about trying to build on this into at least a two term strategy, considering the fact that the Labor vote stalled out flatline arguably went backwards, how realistic is that? Or more importantly, what's it going to take this term to put two together?

ED HUSIC: I think when we're looking and we're approaching that, we need to be always conscious. It's up to the Australian public to make their call about who they want in government. So I think there's no point us getting ahead of ourselves. We got to deliver.

GREG JENNETT: But there's nothing about the breakdown and we're all talking about it and analysing the result. There's nothing about this apparent breakdown in the two party system that was evident on the 21st May that you think is permanent or irreversible?

ED HUSIC: Let me approach it from a different way, because, as you know, I watch a lot of what's happening in the tech and digital space and the way that changes behaviour. And we've already seen long term, you know there was no real, in the way that there once was a lock on institutions and the way that people affiliated to them. There's been that change, and I think it's been accelerated with the times we live in where people really make a decision on performance, what suits them, what works for them and whether or not they want to stick with that. So I think that type of mindset you need to be conscious of in politics and it's really a test for the major parties about how they respond to it. I've always been conscious and I'll make this point very quickly. I might be a Labor MP for the seat of Chifley, but I am an MP that works for the community and I will speak up for my community if something is working well or otherwise, but people want to see their local MP working for them. That's the big take out of this election.

GREG JENNETT: Now, there's definitely a trend line through that success can be mapped very strongly against the coefficient of effort, I think that MPs put in. I want to take you to the task that now lie ahead of you, particularly as industry less so on the questions of science today. You've landed smack bang in the middle of what we're calling a gas crisis. You've been charged with the responsibility of talking to industry. What are they telling you?

ED HUSIC: I can tell you well before this point, the concerns that have been raised by manufacturers who form part of the industrial consumer base of gas. I mean, industrial use of domestic gas supply, roughly half of it goes to industrial users. It's a big thing to be able to get access to affordable gas supply, to deal with the intensities required in production processes. I've been concerned about it for a while and I'm concerned about not just the impact of gas, but there are other things like skill shortages and supply chain difficulties, all combining to make life tough. So we've got to be able to find a way to contain those gas prices and to be able to ensure that that gas supply happens in the short term as well as longer term. I think the plays around emerging forms of energy that can meet the needs of industry, particularly around hydrogen and others, to help satisfy demand.

GREG JENNETT: But in the short term, we do know that all sorts of options are on the table. None has been ruled in or out. 

ED HUSIC: Correct.

GREG JENNETT: East coast reservation policy. Where does that sit with you?

ED HUSIC: As you've heard from my colleague, Chris Bowen, we're keeping all options on the table to ensure that we can meet the needs, the energy needs of industry. We want to send that like that needs to be taken very seriously, but we will look at all options because we cannot have industry, as I said, grappling with a range of other challenges at the moment. You can't have further pressure put on them, got to be dealt with.

GREG JENNETT: Even if you wanted to secure and then divert northwest shelf LNG, isn't there an added problem globally at the moment that you can't get your hands on the plant, necessary regasification units, they call it, that you'd need to install in ports. All of that is caught up in this Russia, Ukraine, Europe crisis as well. I mean, is that a live option, trying to secure one of those around?

ED HUSIC: Port Kembla and quickly again, we'll consult with industry and see what can be done in a constrained time frame, given the urgency involved. But the other point I'd make to you, Greg, is there are some issues in terms of energy prices that clearly the former government would love to blame Labor for everything. We're not in the business. We recognise international factors, plus coal fired generation supply. They've had their issues too. We don't blame the government or former government for that. But having said that, they had 22 cracks at energy policy where they couldn't get it right. And we are paying the price of nine years of politicisation and failure to get policy right by the coalition, and we can't overcome that quickly in this case. But we recognise that the pressure is on to come up with viable solutions.

GREG JENNETT: Within what sort of time period. You must be setting yourself some limits here, weeks, months?

ED HUSIC: Well, I mean, the thing is, if you talk to industry, they want it right now. Right? So we're conscious of that. And I'm not going to say to you that we can. I'm not going to arbitrarily set on your program or timeline, but we do recognise the urgency. But again, the coalition knew this was going to be a problem. Why didn't they deal with it? They knew, even with the mechanisms they've got in place and all that big stick legislation they talk about, et cetera, for what we're dealing with right now, the runway to deal with this problem is so long that if we followed their guides, it wouldn't be until January that we could see some stuff happening. Clearly-

GREG JENNETT: You could overhaul that actual piece of legislation that is called the trigger-

ED HUSIC: We need to contemplate what can be done in that regard. But for all their puffing up their chests and all the claims that were made, we're seeing how that ain't working right now, and they've got to be held to account as well. That for all that hype, they didn't deliver and we've now been landed on our laps, a problem with the coalition's making, we are determined to come up with a solution, a viable solution. But let's not forget for one minute the coalition had an opportunity to fix it and didn't.

GREG JENNETT: Sure point made. Now, so much in industry is globally connected, gas is only one part of it. So international engagement is going to be a big part of your job. That's starting sooner than many might have realised. You're part of the Prime Minister's delegation to Indonesia. From your own point of view, what's that all about?

ED HUSIC: I'm hugely grateful to be part of that first trip with the Prime Minister. I think there are opportunities for us to work closer with our immediate neighbours, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and New Zealand, on common problems. I think there's a whole challenge as well, or opportunity. I'll put it on science diplomacy, finding ways to work on common problems. And I've been interested for some time in working with digital and tech communities across those nations, finding ways that we can work, not just in terms of also working with our Pacific neighbours, but there's a huge opportunity within ASEAN that we need to be able to work together on.

GREG JENNETT: You're talking about manufacture of tech or software and code?

ED HUSIC: Yeah, it's both hardware and software. There's a lot of talent in Indonesia with software developers, and being able to collaborate with them and open up opportunity with them is really important. On early stage innovation. I think we're underdone on that form of collaboration and finding ways to work with Indonesian neighbours on that. And we've got school constraints here. How do we maybe get people, talented people, to not just come here, but for our people to go there as well? Because that will build stronger relationships and that's the type of stuff that we want to think longer term. And I've already decided discussions with the chief scientists about where we can work with communities on that and others here in the not-for-profit space that are very keen to see us develop our science diplomacy as well.

GREG JENNETT: What about value-adding in something we are very strong at, which is food. Could you envisage a trend where Australia did less live cattle export to somewhere like Indonesia because there was more processing in Australia?

ED HUSIC: Where that opportunity does open up, will be good in terms of domestic processing. I've been on the record as a parliamentarian saying that there's some value in that, but there's a lot of other we have a great reputation as a clean food producer. And the bigger longer term, we often get rightly criticises politicians for thinking so for short term, the big long term challenge for the world is food production, sustainable food production. And I think we've got to get our heads together, we are in a climate that's changing one, and where we've got a growing population two, and we need to meet needs because not everyone is on the same income level. So how do we produce it sustainably and cheaply to really important.

GREG JENNETT: Sure. One final one, because you did touch on workforce issues in Australia. I note this week, an undoubted captain of industry in Elon Musk, no one can question his credentials as an industrialist, this week ordered his Tesla staff, all of them, back to work physically in an office. Is that a problem that Australian industry is facing staff absenteeism, remote working. Is that hampering industry in Australia?

ED HUSIC: Well, I've got to say, it's a bit of a Tesla have been very good to work with in Australia, and I've got a lot of time for their chair Robyn Denholm and I would then visited two Tesla gigafactories in January. And I got to tell you, finding people didn't seem to be a problem when I was walking through their gigafactories, either opened or soon to be. It is something that businesses trying to grapple with. But having said that, I wouldn't say necessarily, they'll be diversity of views. Right. Like if you look at Scott Farqhuar, who's one of the co-founders of our biggest success stories, tech success stories, Atlassian, he was saying today, well, you got to moderate that view and they're not necessarily working that way. And when it comes to manufacturing, there will be a requirement for physical presence because production lines do require people to be physically present, businesses working their way through it. And as someone who represents the Western Sydney seat not everyone if they can have an opportunity to work from home and we've seen Google track movements in Australian capital cities and seeing that big decline in CBDs, but a huge movement or activity presence in suburban Australia. So something is in there.

GREG JENNETT: There is an efficiency in taking out the commute times, et cetera.

ED HUSIC: Absolutely and it's good for employers to have happy workforces where if they can perform the work remotely, great but they're going to sort it through depending on their individual needs. Not every business is the same and they will need a physical presence but they'll sort that out with their workforce.

GREG JENNETT: Well, your job is going to take you on the road and in the skies very shortly Ed Husic, thanks so much again for joining us on afternoon briefing.

ENDS