BILL MCDONALD, HOST: It’s Ed Husic. Good morning. 

ED HUSIC, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SCIENCE: G’day. How are you going, Bill? 

BILL MCDONALD: Good. Good, thanks. Now, your article this morning, it focused on future growth and job security in Queensland. Can you tell us a little bit about the regional focus at the moment, because there’s been a couple of regional forums of late, of course. 

ED HUSIC: Well, I think if you look at Queensland, in particular, quite unlike any other state, it has more regionally based manufactures than city based compared to any other state in the country. So it’s providing a lot of great jobs, secure, well-paying jobs outside of Brisbane. Really important. And we need manufacturing to grow here and elsewhere across the country. We want a stronger economy. We don’t want to be vulnerable just getting products and just continually importing products from one or two countries. In key areas we need to build our manufacturing muscle. Really important. Queensland has got a key role to play here and across a range of different areas. And I see it with my own eyes. I just was recently in Springfield, I saw Southern RNA. They’re a medical manufacturing mob that are going to do some really groundbreaking work in new medicines. That’s coming straight out of this great state. And the stuff that you mentioned before in relation to PsiQuantum, know, the computing power, we could be one of the world’s first to get one of the most powerful computers on the planet. If it’s used for industry here and business here, it will supercharge our economy and is really important, again, for long-term growth and jobs. And its Queensland minds, it’s Queensland hands that can help drive this transformation. 

BILL MCDONALD: You’ve been critical of the Queensland LNP’s opposition to your plans in the regional areas. What’s your beef there? 

ED HUSIC: Well, here we are as a government listening too to the voice of the Australian people that say they want Australia to be a place that makes things. We want to work with the private sector to make that happen. We want to co-invest with them to rebuild manufacturing muscle, and that’s what the Future Made in Australia act that’s being debated in parliament is all about. But it’s just as I said this morning in the piece, staggering to hear Queensland LNP members go label it as economic insanity for work that’s happening in their own electorates or to say that its reckless. And my issue with that is we want to make things here, and it seems like the other side of politics want to import stuff from everywhere. And we’ve got to get the balance right. Yeah, there’ll be parts of the world where we do bring things in, right? But we learnt from the pandemic, Bill, you know, those moments when the things we needed most weren’t there when we needed them most and we all said we would learn that lesson and we would do some things differently. We’ve got a chance to prove that can, you know, basically not just be all talk, we can walk the walk as well. That’s really important. And so, you know, I just can’t believe that you would have the other side of politics say to the rest of the country, “We don’t believe in manufacturing. We don’t believe in making things here,” particularly in regional Queensland. 

BILL MCDONALD: Well, last year you heavily supported the Brisbane battery maker Redflow. Last week they called in administrators after a $30 million of funding shortfall for a new factory. What went wrong there then? 

ED HUSIC: Well, the administrators are going through that process. I mean, what Redflow were doing was really important and they were getting great customers too. If you look not just here in Australia but there’s a lot of interest in their product over in the US. I think they’d secured contracts with US Defence and also the state of California on some of their vanadium flow batteries, an Australian idea that we can manufacture here instead of sending it offshore. And so there was a lot of promise. I felt for Redflow having visited them a number of times. A lot of promise there. And as the administrators have noted, Redflow was keen to get access out of state and federal governments, but our view was it needed to be capital matched – that is they needed to have skin in the game as well. And they weren’t able to secure the private capital to match what we wanted to work with them on. Now, it may not have worked in this case with Redflow, but the concept – making more batteries, not importing everything from just one country – there is demand there for energy storage systems and we’ll just see how things evolve. 

BILL MCDONALD: Isn’t that the risk, though, and the criticism? If these businesses don’t stack up and can’t stand on their own two feet without government’s support and financing that it is – there is an element of risk to it? 

ED HUSIC: A lot of what we are setting up in terms of government support you have to be able to demonstrate your ability to get things done to access the financing. Now, the production tax credits, for example, that we’re talking about in hydrogen, you have to be able – you get paid on success. So, it gives taxpayers comfort that money isn’t just going out the door without conditions, and it also imposes a discipline on the businesses that they make things stack up as well. And there is no denying, I mean I think you would accept we’ve got to make, or a lot of firms are saying we need to make, the transition to net zero. A lot of governments are saying the same thing. We’ve got this moment in time, Bill, where if we mobilise Australian industry and manufacturing to make the things that can reduce emissions, create great jobs in the process, there’s a lot of value in that. 

BILL MCDONALD: Yeah, on that point, like, they have to – they’re making that decision because it’s been set in front of them. They have to reach, well, I think a ridiculously hard target to get to. How do you respond to that criticism? That the race to get there in such a short space of time to net zero is actually having a negative effect on Australian industry and its growth? 

ED HUSIC: It’s a race over 25 years, right? Like, we are saying – 

BILL MCDONALD: Well, generational change and a generational race. It’s a big change. 

ED HUSIC: Oh, yeah. Look, there’s no denying the scope of the challenge, right? We’re trying to do in effectively one – you know, in broad terms one generation what took many generations to build up in terms of the way energy was generated and distributed. 

BILL MCDONALD: Yeah. 

ED HUSIC: But also to do it in a way with less of an emissions impact too. But we’ve got to do it. We recognise that those lower emissions are important more broadly for the community and a contribution to the fight against global emission levels. But also let’s just recognise, too, if you can do things with less energy and do it in a way that’s more sustainable, that makes a lot of sense too. If it can come through cheaper, more efficiently, that’s important for business and it’s also important for consumers. 

BILL MCDONALD: The $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund that’s been established, what guarantees can you make alongside that investment for future growth? 

ED HUSIC: A couple of things. So, you know, we made a commitment as a new government to set the reconstruction fund up because of the things I mentioned earlier about rebuilding our manufacturing muscle, being able to have more sovereign capability, do more things here, not be vulnerable. We also did not want to have a system where money was going out the door like what our predecessors did – the LNP; colour-coded spreadsheets, signing taxpayer dollars based on political, not national interests. So we set up an independent board. We’ve said they need to make sure – they’ll go through and make sure that things stack up and they deliver a return for the taxpayer. But as a result of all that effort we’ll be able to see more manufacturing here, more things made here. And so it is important – to the heart of your question – that people have confidence in the way that taxpayer dollars are invested. But people, ultimately they want this country to be a place that makes things, and they understand having lived through the pandemic the value of that too. 

BILL MCDONALD: In relation to that, regarding industry and building and a solid workforce, how are you seeing the current situation and the protests we saw around the nation yesterday regarding the CFMEU and, I guess, as an offshoot of that, Max Chandler-Mather from the Greens grandstanding with them I thought for political purposes to attack Labor? 

ED HUSIC: Yeah, I – well, I think, you know, that action will speak volumes about the Greens. I think most people in the general public believe that they’re – you know, if you see any criminal activity or you see anything of concern to the public about the way that – you know, it could be business or unions, government has got a responsibility to step in and to make sure that the rules are followed. We make no apologies for that. They are tough decisions. But, you know, to create a suggestion that there’s nothing wrong here, again, it’s – I think it’s the worst of politicking by the Greens. It speaks terribly about what their position is on this. 

BILL MCDONALD: I’d agree.

ED HUSIC: But we recognise the responsibility, the Australian government recognise the responsibility. Unions are very important in terms of delivering better wages, better conditions for Australian workers. And there should be not a skerrick of doubt about the way that they’re doing that job. And we have acted responsibly to give confidence to the Australian public that those issues that have been raised – the criminality – will be tackled and dealt with. And it’s a hard thing to do, but it’s the right thing to do. 

BILL MCDONALD: And in terms of the so-called CFMEU tax we have in this state, the BPIC, that adds 25 to 30 per cent to what we’re talking about trying to build with industry and the future. Your thoughts on that. 

ED HUSIC: Mate, that’s more a state-based matter. If you don’t mind, I might leave it to that. But, you know, I just think the stuff that I said earlier, it’s important to have integrity in both business and unions in terms of the way that they conduct themselves and that’s what our – from a federal level, that’s what our focus will be in this case. There are a lot of other unions that are doing some great work, really important work to help people out. And we want to be able to ensure that that continues. 

BILL MCDONALD: On a similar sort of level there I’ve got to say, like, it’s all well and good for Brisbane and Queensland, as you say, to be regarded as the centrepiece of future investment, but it seems nobody here – certainly we’re seeing it from an Olympic stadium point of view – nobody here can make a bloody decision. 

ED HUSIC: Well, I don’t know. I’d probably take a different view about confidence. As I indicated in the piece in the Courier Mail today, based on the Courier Mail’s own work, 9 in 10 regional manufacturers are investing more. They want to see more being made here and they want to create more jobs. Obviously, it depends on where you stand and what angle you’re taking. I appreciate people will have different views. But I reckon there’s a degree of confidence that’s emerging in manufacturers as well. I don’t want to overblow it as a typical politician, but I think there’s a lot to be confident about. And I reckon if we get our act together in terms of government and business and workers all as one on this, we can do some really great things. 

BILL MCDONALD: All right. The old saying goes, if you build it they will come. Rome wasn’t built in a day, I know, but at least it got built. It got built at least, but no-one makes a decision here in this current government. And I know we’ve got an election a couple of months away, so maybe that’s more what it’s about. I appreciate your time. 

ED HUSIC: Well, I’ve just got to say, though, you’re making that point to me. When we do make decisions we get a bit of grief for it. I mean, the PsiQuantum thing is just staggering. I mean, these are Queenslanders who want to come back home and help us build our technological strengths. It is a good investment made by the Australian – 

BILL MCDONALD: Could they do it without federal funding? 

ED HUSIC: Well, they’ve been doing a lot of work without any government funding. I mean, they are world leaders that are attracting huge private capital, but what we have set up with them is a loan and a stake, an equity stake in them. The loan gets repaid and we make money off the equity, right? But as a result, we get powerful – we get huge computing power. We get high-paid jobs, we get work with research institutions to build up the next wave of technology that will be really important. And there’ll be a lot of people that are listening to this that don’t understand one jot of what all this means. 

BILL MCDONALD: Yes, true.

ED HUSIC: But they do know technology is important for the economy. 

BILL MCDONALD: Yep. 

ED HUSIC: We made a decision and we’ve had the other side of politics try to make all – a whole stack of myths about that. You know, I believe you got to make decisions, got to make investments. We’ll do them. You know, we’ll obviously have knockers, but we are going to – we are determined Australia is going to be a place that makes things. 

BILL MCDONALD: Yep. Plenty of upside; I agree with you there. Thanks for your time, Ed. Really appreciate it. 

ED HUSIC: Good on you, Bill. Good on you. 

BILL MCDONALD: That’s the federal Minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic.