E&OE…
Topics: Visit to BlueScope steel, Wollongong steel industry, anti-dumping, Arrium
FIONA WYLLIE:
So Minister, some commentators have argued your Government's championing of the digital age was a factor in your struggle for re-election, the Prime Minister failing to sell the benefits of the digital transformation to old economy workers. Can you assure workers in industries such as manufacturing that there is a future for them in the future?
GREG HUNT:
Well, there really is a future, and innovation is about new firms, absolutely. But it's equally about old and existing firms, and from day one in the job I've made that point.
I've visited the steel plants, for example, in Hastings, Whyalla, and today in Wollongong. I've visited the Dulux plant in Clayton in Victoria, where you see R&D going on in a hundred-year-old firm.
What comes from that is new products, they're doing new production methods, investment in a new plant of over $160 million, and the share price has tripled through innovation in existing firms. So I want to underline very clearly it is front and centre in what we're proposing.
FIONA WYLLIE:
What sort of chance does BlueScope have in winning the steel contracts for projects like the 19 Pacific patrol boats being built in Western Australia?
GREG HUNT:
Well, we've committed to the 19 patrol boats being built with Australian steel. BlueScope is obviously extremely well-placed to do that, and I had that discussion just today with management. They're confident. I won't pre-empt a contract process, but it will be Australian steel, and that gives an enormous opportunity to BlueScope.
FIONA WYLLIE:
What sort of commitment is the Federal Government making or willing to make to give Australian steel, being the chosen steel, to be used in lots of major projects, or all major projects?
GREG HUNT:
Well, we've just completed a contract for the Adelaide to Tarcoola Rail Line. That's likely to add $80 million to the bottom line of Arrium's Whyalla plant. So very, very important there. That was the Australian Rail Track Corporation as the Commonwealth agent that did the contracting. The first of that steel has actually rolled out of the plant, and already produced income for Arrium.
Secondly, the shipbuilding contract is an enormous $89 billion project. So it's over 50 ships being constructed in Australia. No new ships were contracted for Australian build under the previous Government, and we've now had over 50 approved on our watch, which will all be constructed. So that's a huge opportunity for Australian steel.
And then we've gone and modernised the anti-dumping regime, which is about making sure there's a level playing field for Australian steel, and the Prime Minister has just completed the G20 visit in China two weeks ago where he led the push for an international approach to reducing overcapacity, particularly Chinese overcapacity, in the global steel market.
FIONA WYLLIE:
So that's going to stop countries dumping?
GREG HUNT:
Well, we're taking a very strong and clear line on dumping. Both at the international level, and that was perhaps the signature achievement of the G20 meeting, and then secondly, at home through our own approach to modernise and upgrade anti-dumping. So those things are designed to guarantee that Australian firms have a level playing field. I think that's a profoundly important step.
FIONA WYLLIE:
Minister, did you get to talk to many workers at BlueScope today?
GREG HUNT:
Indeed. So I met a lot on the floor of the plant, but also had a specific meeting with the unions afterwards. I think that that was important to do to hear what they were looking for. No false promises in either direction, but because I represent an electorate with a steel plant only a couple of kilometres, three kilometres from my office, I've spent many, many years focusing on the steel sector.
So I think you can't beat meeting the people who are on the floor of the plant to understand the challenges and the problems, and the same thing was exactly what we did in Whyalla.
FIONA WYLLIE:
Did they talk to you about the fact that they're on a three year wage freeze, there have been hundreds, 500 job losses, and then the company made a profit? Quite a huge profit, 160 per cent improvement on last year. Not around the Port Kembla Works, but that was part of it. Are they talking about that? Are they disappointed?
GREG HUNT:
My take is that no worker wants to see their wages reduce. All of the workers, and it was the union which made the decision, in conjunction with the workers, wanted to see the plant stay open, and they all work together and deserve credit for this to make the plant profitable, and a profitable plant is what will allow for better wages and more jobs.
We're likely to see more jobs in the Hastings plant. We're likely to see more jobs. One of the mines at the plant was being increased from five to seven days in the coming months. That I think was a great sign. That means more shifts, more income, and more economic drive in the Illawarra region.
FIONA WYLLIE:
How do you ensure, though, that these older industries remain viable without staff having to prop them up?
GREG HUNT:
Well, the only path to long-term viability, and I've said this wherever I've gone, is for firms to be world-class competitive, and this is where the innovation story comes in. It's not a word just about start-ups in inner Sydney, although those emerging firms are actually fundamental and I'm very optimistic.
It's especially about the existing longer term firms and that's why the work of BlueScope in creating a new Zincalume product which made it more competitive in terms of cost and more durable in terms of product helped with their profitability. It helps with their market and therefore it helps with their viability.
So innovation is driving the profitability of BlueScope, it's driving the profitability of Dulux, and these are really great Australian examples of turnaround based upon the workers themselves, people on the floor making proposals, plus a structured R&D program.
FIONA WYLLIE:
A report out today from the industry body Coal Services has revealed more than one in five New South Wales coal mining jobs have gone since employment peaked four years ago. How does a government counteract job losses such as this and support an industry which may have peaked?
GREG HUNT:
Well I think what we have to do is to make sure that there are opportunities for workers who are leaving any sector or leaving any firm. This is the whole point of on the one hand supporting new industries and this is advanced manufacturing. It's not expecting people to do things they can't do so for example I saw in Geelong where autoworkers who are leaving Ford or Holden were picking up new jobs in a firm called Carbon Revolution that was making world class carbon fibre wheels, some of the best wheels in the world.
Manufacturing, what were they looking for as an employer? They were looking for the very skills that the auto manufacturers had. Similarly those that are in existing areas and they are individual firms will change from time to time, these advanced manufacturing jobs are critical and then across the country, existing firms, existing sectors, it's all about being competitive. Competitive is about being productive and innovation isn't just a word for people in start-ups, it's the very thing that's driving 60 per cent of our national productivity. Jobs, wealth and quality of life. That's why the innovation really matter.
FIONA WYLLIE:
But what are those coal miners going to do? What jobs are they going to do?
GREG HUNT:
Well, what you find, and I was giving you the example of the advanced manufacturing, the Carbon Revolution where people who have skills from working in a manufacturing or primary industries environment are able to pick those things up and our approach has been to make sure that we have a simple business environment and a low tax regime.
The best way for Australian firms to compete is they've got to be internally competitive but we've got to have an international competitive domestic environment. I know there are some who are against having a lower tax regime in Australia, but if we have a higher tax regime and I think that's the way to think of it, it means firms that have the ability to move their capital around the world would be less likely to invest in Australia so we ought to make firms more likely to invest and more likely to stay. In the end they'll make the decision to stay or to invest if it is profitable.
FIONA WYLLIE:
Well we hear from we hear from small business operators on this program that say it's just too hard to put another person on because of all the red tape.
GREG HUNT:
Well red tape is something that is a very big issue, as environment minister, I set out creating a one-stop shop. What we saw was a dramatic reduction in red tape and cost whilst actually having an increase in the environmental standards by working with the state. The thing that I want to do now is to work on business simplification. I've written to all of the states and territories about creating a single business entry point where at the end of the day, set up a business to register, to run through everything, instead of having ten or eleven or twelve different points of contact, to have one single entry point, to do things once will make a dramatic difference in terms of time and cost.
FIONA WYLLIE:
That's for new businesses, but for existing businesses who want to just put on another person but you know, everything that's involved with what they have to do in collecting GST and doing BAS and things like that, they say it's just too hard to put another person on and you know, all the expenses around it.
GREG HUNT:
I do know that I was criticised mercilessly by the ALP for wanting to have a one-stop shop in terms of simplifying environmental approvals. Similarly we've had enormous resistance from the ALP in terms of simplifying not just business set up but the whole step of business processes.
I think we can do it and I think we can get better standards, rather than having people having to run from department to department, exactly the type of thing you talk about should be a simple approach where there is a single business entry point, not just the creation of new businesses, but for all of the business interactions with government, federal, state, local, through a single approach, that's my holy grail and goal that I want to work on over the next three years.
FIONA WYLLIE:
Minister thank you very much for your time.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks very much.
(ENDS)