TED O'BRIEN: Well, delighted to be here today at Sunshine Coast Cider, and I thank Martin and Jean for hosting us. And I'm here, of course, with the Minister for Industry, Angus Taylor. Delighted to have you in town, Minister, and particularly looking forward to an announcement you might just make shortly. So very excited about that. And also standing here together with Emma Greenhatch who, of course, is the CEO and driving force behind the Food and Agribusiness Network – FAN – on the Sunshine Coast, and also Andrew Brodie, who is CEO of our fantastic Sunshine Coast Airport.

I might have a few more things to say, but first and foremost delighted to be handing over to Minister Angus Taylor. Minister. 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Thanks, Ted. It's great to be back in your part of the world, this wonderful part of the world. A beautiful part of the world. And it's good to see it going from strength to strength, as it always is whenever I come here. Emma and Andrew, great to be here with you.

And, of course, as Minister for Industry, I've had the great pleasure of being able to make a series of announcements over recent weeks on manufacturing initiatives that we're supporting right across Australia, supporting fantastic Australian manufacturing which is going from strength to strength. We are re-asserting our position in manufacturing as we see this desire now to get more Australian product, have more control over our own destiny, to be producing Australian made products that Australians can enjoy.

And, of course, nowhere is that more true than in the food and beverage industry where one in four Australian manufacturing jobs are in that sector. A hugely important sector for this country for the jobs in manufacturing but also for all the suppliers, the farmers and the service providers who all play that extraordinary role in an industry where Australia has been a world leader for a long time. And I tell you what, as a government, we intend to remain a world leader. 

Now the announcement today, it's wonderful to be here to be able to announce $33 million we're contributing to the development of the Turbine Precinct. This is a precinct that will enable innovation and product development in the food and beverage manufacturing sector in this region. So if you're starting out, you've got a new food and beverage idea for this region, this is a platform that you'll be able to use to get your product up and running.

We were just talking about this wonderful cider business here today and how they would have got started, indeed, if this precinct was in place in the past. It would have enabled them to use that platform to get moving quickly. It's little bit like in the IT industry you use the cloud now to get things up and running fast. Well, this will provide that platform for innovation in our food and beverage industry.

Now, that innovation is where the jobs will come from in the coming years. We know the combination of leading edge technology and innovation alongside traditional manufacturing like you see here is the way that we create jobs in manufacturing, where we re-establish our dominance in manufacturing in this country and we drive investment for many years to come.

It's a fantastic announcement. It's a real tribute to the team that has brought this together. This is very – these are difficult proposals to bring together. What is particularly positive about this proposal is the collaborations involved – university collaborations, business collaborations as well as government, of course – and bringing those things together to create a precinct that can enable world-leading innovation in food and beverage.

Well done to all involved. It's a real pleasure to be able to announce this today. I should say before I finish the $33 million will actually lead to over $112 million of overall investment, 680 jobs ultimately we see that will be created by establishing this precinct. That is, you know, a fantastic outcome and one that I think will serve this region extremely well for years to come.

(Applause) 

TED O'BRIEN: Well, Minister, thank you very much. Today the Turbine Precinct gets turbo boosted by a very big lick of money from the Federal Government. And there's a good reason why that's the case and at the heart of it lies a collaborative model. You know, if you look at what the food and agri network has done in pulling together a syndication here is quite extraordinary. Through the Turbine Precinct we will see business, institutions of education together with investors and government supporting food and beverage businesses, any small business here on the Sunshine Coast that has an idea can take that idea all the way through to commercialisation under the one roof with the Turbine Precinct based at the airport.

Now this is going to be an end-to-end service that is going to be made available. It represents a new way of doing business for the sector. And this way, it's an Australian first. I believe, indeed, it's a world first, covering everything from warehousing and logistics through to education and training, through to research and development and commercialisation. What's more, the ability to scale. We know that big ideas start small, but the great ones scale fast. And the Turbine Precinct will enable that scaling for food and beverage companies.

It's also wonderful that it is going to be based at the Sunshine Coast Airport, an airport that is now a fully-fledged international airport. And if you look at the free trade agreements that the Coalition Government has signed over recent years, it means that we have more markets open to food and beverages coming from not just the Sunshine Coast but through the Sunshine Coast Airport from everywhere in Australia.

We do see this Turbine Precinct representing an opportunity for not just jobs but life-long careers, whether you're an engineer, whether you're a designer, whether you're a food technologist. The Turbine Precinct will over time become the hub within Australia for true innovation within the food and beverage sector. And in that way it will be leading the way globally for how you can innovate and ensure we connect the best in research with the best in business and ensure that we have the logistics in place to get it to market and get it there fast.

It will make it for businesses – the Turbine Precinct will make commercialisation more accessible, easier and faster. That's what it's all about. We're just delighted today with the announcement of the $33 million from the Morrison government. And particular thanks to Minister Angus Taylor who's made that call and is here today to announce it. Thank you very much, Minister, and I'll pass on to Emma.

(Applause)

EMMA GREENHATCH: Deep breath. Minister Taylor, Ted, it's an absolute honour to be standing here today and to have this incredibly exciting news. And I stand here on behalf of the industry in the Sunshine Coast region and on behalf of this incredible group of people that have backed this vision for years. We were just having a conversation before and this has been about eight years in the making. This whole idea of bringing industry together with partners like research, education, government and being able to work together to reduce those barriers to scale in our industry. 

The food and agribusiness industry in Australia and in this region has very high barriers – 87 per cent of the industry are small and medium enterprises. The cost of capital, the size of our market, all of those things mean lots of these businesses stay small. So the idea of the Turbine Precinct is putting in place the shared infrastructure, the shared manufacturing services and wrapping around that, the capability that these small businesses need to help turbo charge growth.

And as has been explained today, the other amazing opportunity here is creating an innovation ecosystem within this precinct. Over the last seven years the Food and Agribusiness Network has created these collaborative ecosystems in the Sunshine Coast region where our industry and our partners – government, research – understand those benefits of working together.

What Turbine is going to do now is enable those businesses in a physical precinct to take that to a whole new level. And as has been explained today already, that pathway to commercialisation, the location at Sunshine Coast Airport with direct access to domestic and in time international markets, it has created this world-first project that we're delighted is here in the Sunshine Coast region.

I'd like to make particular mention of the partners that we have here today who have supported this project. We've got Sunshine Coast Airport, we've got RDA Sunshine Coast, Sunshine Coast Council, University of the Sunshine Coast and, really important, our industry partners as well – Queensland Drinks Accelerator, Lyre's – who am I missing, anybody – Doehler … All these businesses have been working together over the last few years, and fundraising is hard. It's not an easy thing to do. But when you have that shared vision and you have the support that we've now received from the Federal Government under the Modern Manufacturing Initiative which is truly transformational, and I really would like to commend the Federal Government for backing this innovative project.

(Applause) 

ANDREW BRODIE: Well, Emma, can you believe it?

EMMA GREENHATCH: No.

ANDREW BRODIE: Firstly to Minister Taylor and to Ted O'Brien, I really want to thank the Federal Government for believing in this region. My thanks goes to our Member for Fairfax Ted O'Brien who has fought tirelessly with us on this journey over the last few years. 

Sunshine Coast Airport is so pleased and proud to partner with the FAN and Turbine Group to bring to life this 20,000 square metre facility on our airport. That facility will bring more jobs to this region than you've known before. It will support the 7,000 primary producers in our wider region and create jobs for small mums and dads, medium companies and large corporates.

So, Emma, congratulations. We look forward to partnering with you into the future. For us our focus is clearly on aviation connectivity. We've announced recently we've just become the second most domestically connected airport in Queensland behind Brisbane. Our focus is clearly on international now, and we cannot wait to grow that into the future. So in partnership with the Federal Government and the FAN group, we can't wait to get going.

(Applause) 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Questions first on this initiative.

JOURNALIST: Andrew, a couple of questions. Why the airport? And is this the space where people had thought there was going to be a DFO? There was speculation years ago that this space was going to be a DFO?

ANDREW BRODIE: I'm not sure about DFO, but definitely I think for us always freight logistics has been a core part. It will help airlines both from a domestic and international perspective. We've been working with Emma and the FAN group for nearly two years now on brings this facility to life. It's a one of a kind. It's a first class international facility that will create more jobs, and the airport is centrally located so not only from road access but also from aviation access. So the produce and product from this wider region that's produced in that facility will get on the belly of our aircraft domestically and at the right time internationally.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Can I just make a brief comment on that?

JOURNALIST: Yes.

ANGUS TAYLOR: One of the really attractive elements of this project is that it is on the airport. Right around the world we're seeing increasingly great food and agribusiness collaborations happening at airport precincts. You go to Schiphol Airport in Europe in the Netherlands and you see exactly that. And you see this in so many places. So this is I think world class what's been done here. And the way it's been put together and crafted I think has the potential to be a real world-leading food agri precinct. That's what I want to say.

JOURNALIST: Minister, just a question for you as well – sorry – this funding, is this contingent on winning the election, or if regardless of government will this funding happen?

ANGUS TAYLOR: That's a question for the Opposition. But I'll tell you, if we're in Government, this is happening. It's in the budget, so it will be budgeted. I can assure you of that. And it's part of the $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy which we're absolutely committed to. Over $800 million already committed, and there'll be more committed in the coming weeks. So, I tell you what, whilst I'm in this chair, this is happening, and whilst the Government is in power this is happening.

JOURNALIST: I just have a question for Emma, just regarding obviously someone can have really great ideas in businesses but they just don't know how to market it or how to get it through the system. Is this going to help with that obviously, with the different sectors that you'll have under the one roof?

EMMA GREENHATCH: Yeah, absolutely. When you look at the food and agribusiness industry across the region, this precinct will deliver services and capability for every business. So from the R&D, whether or not businesses are prototyping a new idea, doing testing and analysis, the education and training precinct that we're partnering with USC and TAFE on, so they'll be able to come in and receive relevant training in an industry commercial facility. Through the Queensland Drinks Accelerator they'll be able to use a contract manufacturing facility to make new beverages or to scale up what they're currently doing. And here at Sunshine Coast Cider today I know that Martin's told you already valuable this project would have been if it had have been around when they moved out of their garage a few years ago. But hopefully, you never know, they might scale into this in another couple of years' time.

So importantly outside of the infrastructure, that is the skills and knowledge in this precinct that will help these small businesses because we know you can have the infrastructure, but often it's all the other business skills that go with that, that make it really hard to grow our own businesses to scale.

JOURNALIST: Do you hope that other areas of regional Queensland will take inspiration from this precinct and maybe develop something similar in their own backyards, in their own airport precincts?

EMMA GREENHATCH: We've certainly got a vision for this project to establish a blueprint for collaborative manufacturing in Australia. So through the FAN model of creating that soft infrastructure over the last seven years, so that ecosystem where businesses understand the value of actually working together, then lifting that and popping it in a physical precinct where they're share in those services and manufacturing capability, we believe that could be applied to other regions around Queensland and beyond and also to other industries as well beyond the food and agribusiness.

JOURNALIST: So, Emma, if I've got a sheep cheese or something I want to get to –

EMMA GREENHATCH: Sheep cheese? That's a great example.

JOURNALIST: Do I have to pay to use your facilities, your services, your knowledge? How does it work?

EMMA GREENHATCH: Yes, so we working on the business model at the moment, and obviously this funding from the Federal Government will be an amazing opportunity for us to reduce some of those cost barriers for particularly the start-ups and small businesses to access this. It's important to know that this is a commercial facility. But the big difference between what typically happens in these types of projects where it is just an R&D facility or it's just an education precinct significant or it's just a commercial precinct, we're putting it all together. But, importantly to note, it's industry-led. So it has been our industry partners that are investing $58 million in this along with the Federal Government's $33 million to bring this project to life.

JOURNALIST: When does construction hope to begin and when can we see the precinct up and running?

EMMA GREENHATCH: Do I get to answer that question? So we're working towards a time frame of it being operational late 2023.

ANGUS TAYLOR: All good? Any more questions on this or do have other questions?

JOURNALIST: Yes, other questions. Minister, some former chiefs of Defence have warned the climate crisis is the greatest threat to the future of security of Australia saying the government has no credible climate policy. Have you left Australians unprepared for the harsh impacts of climate change?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, we haven't. I mean, we see this as an enormous [indistinct]. That's why we committed to net zero by 2050. That's why we've met and beat our Kyoto targets. That's why Australia, unlike so many other countries in the world, smashed those 2020 targets. Our emissions are down by 20 per cent since 2005. That's better than New Zealand, it's better than Canada, comparable agricultural and commodity exporting countries like us, we've done way better than they have. They've barely moved their emissions. Better than Japan. Better than the United States.

Our approach is technology not taxes, though. We have great faith in the ability of Australian businesses and Australian households to deploy technology at a pace which is as fast as anywhere in the world. And we are seeing the highest rate of household solar uptake in the world in this country. In fact, in this area where we are right now it doesn't get higher. It's as high as anywhere in the world.

Now this is how we're doing it. It's a different approach. Others want government to be overbearing and tell everyone what to do. That's not what we're doing. That's not how the Liberal National Party thinks about this. So we're getting on with it. We're delivering the outcomes. We'll deliver on 2030 just as we've delivered on 2020. That's our commitment. And we have the runs on the board, unlike so many other countries around the world.

JOURNALIST: So you disagree with the Defence leaders? Do you agree that you've Australians unprepared for the harsh impacts of climate change?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, we're constantly dealing with these issues by, first of all, mitigation, which is just what I've been talking about. Making sure that we are doing our bit. Obviously the way the world needs to deal with this is deploying technologies most of all in developing countries. We're seeing sharp reductions in emissions across the OECD and developing countries. The challenge is developing countries because they want to grow. They want to have strong economies just as we do. And so helping them with technologies that allows them to reduce their emissions is the key.

Now, 90 per cent of solar cells around the world have Australian [indistinct] in them. So the technology and investment we're making today and we make through the modern manufacturing strategy is all about making sure we are prepared for the future, we're resilient, we're robust. We'll continue to do that.

We know that weather events are changing. We do know that. I mean, that's very clear. I've seen that. My family's farmed for five generations in south eastern New South Wales, and we understand this and we need to adapt to it and be prepared for it. But most importantly, we also need to do our fair share of mitigation. And that's exactly what we're doing.

JOURNALIST: Are we prepared, though? I think people in Gympie and Lismore might argue they didn't feel particularly prepared [indistinct]?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No doubt it's been a really tough time period for those in the Northern Rivers area. There's no question about that. As there was in my electorate in the fires a couple of years ago. So we're very conscious of these issues. And we need to keep dealing with them appropriately. 

But, as I say, the point, the broader point you're making about mitigation, Australia is doing its fair share and we will continue to. And we are proud. Lots of people want to talk Australia down. Let me tell you, on every front I talk Australia up because we outperformed time and time again on issue after issue after issue. Look at the pandemic. Australia has outperformed. Lots of people want to talk us down. Lots of people want to talk us down. I tell you what – most Australians are proud of this country and what we're achieving and we should be very proud of what we're achieving on abating and mitigating emissions.

JOURNALIST: Former Defence chief Admiral Chris Barry, one of these people talking us down, has said that climate change is leading to a rising food crisis in countries around the world. Do you agree?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, the immediate food crisis we're seeing right now is because we've lost the production coming out of Ukraine and we've got a very sharp increase in fertiliser prices. When I say a sharp increase, I'm talking about a tripling of fertiliser prices around the world. Why has that happened? Because the price of gas has gone up by something like 3 to 400 per cent around the world, and that's the main input into nitrogen fertiliser.

This is a major issue. Now Australia, fortunately, is in a much better position than most other countries in the world when it comes to having enough gas supply. We're going to see Australia move from being a major importer of nitrogen fertiliser to being a very major local producer of nitrogen fertiliser in the coming years because we're getting these policies right.

But it is a big issue. And the impact on food prices we are seeing around the world is a very substantial issue. There's no question about that. And it's very unfortunate that the impacts in the Ukraine – it's the bread basket of Europe. There's no question about that in that region. And it is yet to have its worst impact on food prices. We're very conscious of that.

JOURNALIST: And so what are you going to do? How is the government – you being the government – going to juggle the compensation of these high costs of living, petrol as well as well as food security?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I'm not going to speculate on the budget. I'll leave that to the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. You've only got to wait until next Tuesday. Sit on the edge of your chairs and you'll be able to see what's in the budget. But we're very conscious of the cost of living pressures Australians are facing.