Zaneta Mascarenhas MP
House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra
Matters of Public Importance
I am proud to stand here as a member of the great Australian Labor Party. I am also the daughter of migrants. My dad was a metalworker. My dad worked on the workshop floors. In fact, my dad worked alongside Bobs, Garys, Vladimirs and Mohammeds because that's what manufacturing looked like 50 years ago. And guess what? When I go to the heart of Swan, that's what workshops look like today—but there are also more women. It's super exciting. Something that might be interesting to follow, for those at home and on the other side of the benches—the Labor Party has done so much work in this area.
I have grown up in the mining industry. Growing up in the industry, one of the things you see is what happens when you have boom-bust economies. Do you know what happens? People lose their jobs, and jobs are very important. What is this number—1,135,500? That's the number of jobs created under the federal Labor government since May 2022. How do you know if industry is strong? It's if people have jobs. Which government has created the most of jobs? It is the great Australian Labor Party. We do that because we back industry. But not only do we back industry we're looking at jobs for the future. We are looking at jobs in the 20, 30, and 40 years, and we are doing that by reimagining what the future of Australia looks like. We are doing that through the National Reconstruction Fund because when we diversify our economy we become more resilient. We have quality, secure jobs that can help people for decades to come. This is something that I am deeply passionate about. One of the reasons for that is that I remember being in WA 15 years ago, when we had $170 billion worth of LNG projects happening in the North West Shelf and not one of those projects was being developed in WA. Hundreds of engineers lost their jobs, and the workshops were empty.
At that time, it was a state Liberal government. They did not believe in local jobs, local manufacturing and looking at the way we could actually create industry, right? So what we next saw was a state Labor government, which decided they were into beautiful craftsmanship. There is a beautiful bridge called the Matagarup Bridge, out near the football stadium in Burswood. They were like, 'Should we build it overseas or locally?' We built it locally, and it is a stunning example of craftsmanship. I recommend that people go check it out. Then they also brought railcar manufacturing to WA, and you know what? What a great idea. Federal Labor then comes up with our vision for manufacturing, the National Reconstruction Fund, and we are imagining what we can do.
Some people think that we used to make complex things. I hate to say it, the nerd in me—yes, I am a scientist and an engineer—knows we already do some really complex things. We came up with the idea of the cochlear implant, and we are manufacturing it. We came up with the technology for polymer banknotes. We are exporting it. Also—to be a total nerd—there's the Square Kilometre Array in Western Australia, where we're looking at the stars. It is incredibly impressive. But what I'm saying is we need to do more than that, and that is what the National Reconstruction Fund is about. It's about looking at the way that we can continue to build industry and do this for the nation. This is a nation-building exercise, and Labor is doing this. The other thing that I'd say is—we were talking about energy before. My day job before I was elected to the federal parliament was to give people energy advice. The cheapest form of energy is actually wind and solar.
Members interjecting
Yes, how about that? Crazy! I agree that we need to have cheaper energy, and the cheapest form of energy at the moment is renewable energy. We need to continue to look at how we can do this. Also, baseload? That's a fantasy. That's not the way our modern electricity systems are going to look. That's just a fallacy. Put that out there. But I'm really excited about the energy future for Australia, our industrial base and the way that we can be a nation that builds things for the future. The truth is that the pathway to net zero emissions cannot happen without Australia. We've got the resources below the ground. We've got the resources above the ground. This is such an exciting opportunity, and I recommend that the coalition join with us. If you think manufacturing it cool, support the National Reconstruction Fund.
