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ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Australia has been world leading at innovation. PV solar created at places like the University of NSW, the Australian National University, has seen the breakthroughs that have led the world. But we have not been good at commercialising those opportunities. We’ve created the innovation and then seen all the value being added offshore. And today we have around about 90 per cent of the world’s solar panels produced in just one country, in just one country, China, and then exported to around the world. We missed the opportunities. We are not going to miss the opportunities of this generation. And that is what our support is about.
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JOURNALIST: Will Australia make solar cheaper than the ones made in China? And if not, how can you be sure that Australians will buy them?
PRIME MINISTER: These are the most efficient solar panels in the world. These are good products. They will last for longer, they will be commercially, commercially available, and we are very confident that Australians will have Australian panels on their roofs. This technology that’s been developed – and I might ask if you want to add to this, Vince – this technology is the best in the world. We’ve missed out in the past, and that’s a tragedy. When we think about Australia, we should be so proud that of so many – everything from the black box to Wi-Fi to solar panels – we have been innovative. From time to time we’ve been effective at value adding, but too many times we’ve just let those opportunities go past. When you have the best product, most efficient in the world, for something that will grow in demand, then we are very, very confident – as well as using the procurement policies of government, using the power of government purchasing as well, and we have a made in Australia policy as well in our national Government – that you can use government to, if you like, provide comfort of that base going forward and then go out, not just to Australia, but I see opportunities from this Sunshot program to export to the world as well – of the range of products that we have, and energy that we can produce here in Australia, as well. As with new technology, one of the things that is happening and why I’m confident about the broader issue of a future made in Australia – without getting too philosophical about it – with new technology and advanced manufacturing techniques, the proportion of labour in the costs of production has been reducing over a long period of time. So, in the 1970s and 1980s, when we saw Australian manufacturing depart Australia, it was about labour costs. Because transport is a higher proportion of the costs of production, particularly for domestic use, and labour costs are far less, then the competitive nature changes between Australia developing countries. And that’s why this announcement today of a Future Made in Australia, and one of the reasons why Ed is here, as well as the person who’s looking after the National Reconstruction Fund, we see this certainly, as Chris said, not the beginning but not the end either. We see a future made in Australia as being a centrepiece of our Budget in May. This is, if you like, a bit of a sneak peek into what will be rolling out over the next year and in the years to come. This is a big difference between us and our political opponents, who don’t think that Australia is up to it, effectively – who’ve abandoned manufacturing. We had a debate this week about cars. They told the car industry to leave. That had consequences for Australian jobs in Australia’s economy. We think we can do it and this bloke is one of the people who’s doing it.
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JOURNALIST: Are there any risks in relying on China supply of solar panels that the Government’s trying to protect? Will Australia can follow the US in imposing tariffs on Chinese solar?
PRIME MINISTER: No. Well, that’s not our objective here, but our objective is to be more resilient. We know that in today’s world, one of the things that is happening is that nation states are looking at their sovereign capacity, their ability to be resilient and to not be vulnerable to shocks. Now, there could be three shocks can occur, at least in the future. One we went through recently – the pandemic. The science tells us that there might be something else that disrupted our trade, it disrupted our way of life. The second is cyber issues, which can be disruptive as well. And the third is either trade impediments, conflict – either economic or defence conflict as well. So, we want to make sure that we have a more resilient economy. That’s one of the lessons of the pandemic, is that we need to be able to stand on our own two feet. And that’s why when we talk about manufacturing, it won’t just be this. We have been speaking about manufacturing pharmaceuticals, we’ve been speaking about manufacturing in so many different ways. You’ll see some more work that we’re doing on batteries and other areas as well. We need to make our economy more resilient.
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JOURNALIST: Tarrifs was mentioned earlier in China, how close are we to the tariffs on our industry from being removed, and that market being opened up again?
PRIME MINISTER: Now, I don’t want to I don’t want to spoil the next the next visit, which is to a winery with the member of Hunter, Dan Repacholi, so if you come along there, that I’m sure you will get an invite to it in just in a short while I’ll be speaking about the wine industry there at Brokenwood here in the Hunter. The Hunter Valley has great opportunities. What we know is that the wine industry, in terms of its exports to China, were worth over a billion dollars annually, annually. The impediments to our trade with China was worth more than $20 billion annually. What that is – that’s about Australian jobs. And my Government has been patient, deliberate and calibrated about our engagement with China. I’ve said we will cooperate where we can, we’ll disagree where we must, but we’ll engage in our national interest. And I very much welcomed the visit of Wang Yi to Australia a couple of weeks ago, as I will welcome the visit of Premier Li to Australia for our annual leaders talks that will take place later this year. The interim decision on wine has been handed down. The decision is imminent, about the next step in that and I’ll have more to say about that in a short period of time.
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Source: Office of the Australian Prime Minister
Speaker: The Hon. Anthony Albanese MP, Prime Minister of Australia
Format: Press Conference
China Policy Research 