The Albanese government has failed to learn a crucial lesson from the pandemic, a leading manufacturer has declared as the sector struggles under the oil crisis.<\/p>\n
Manufacturing has been in strife as the sector scrambles for diesel and other major types of fuel that are in short supply and subject to price shocks.<\/p>\n
It prompted the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre\u2019s chairman Paul Cooper to argue that Australia needed to ensure a coordinated response during times of crisis.<\/p>\n
He noted that this was a major warning from the Covid Response Inquiry report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Kruk Inquiry, when that was handed down on the impacts of Covid and the handling of Covid, one of the key recommendations was coordination right across Australia,\u201d Mr Cooper told Business Weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said that in Covid, they stood up a national cabinet and that worked, but it was ad hoc.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed to a 2023 house standing committee which examined the manufacturing sector and recommended a manufacturing commissioner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat National Advanced Manufacturing Commissioner\u2019s office was never stood up,\u201d Mr Cooper said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the coordination across manufacturers in Australia hasn’t been there, so a lot of us are facing the same problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
The litany of challenges plaguing manufacturing in Australia, including labour and energy costs and availability, have been exacerbated by increased freight expenses from heightened diesel prices.<\/p>\n
Mr Cooper said shocks that rattle the sector are extremely tough to weather due to the underlying problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we have massive swings in inputs where we can’t change our pricing to our end customers, that’s difficult,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tackling these challenges as a unified nation, Mr Cooper argued, would ensure the sector can push forward with business operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sat on a meeting this morning with a state commission that is looking at the responses to the current fuel crisis. That is just one state. There are other states, there’s territories, nationally, everyone’s trying to lean in now and do their own thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere’s the coordination right across Australia to ensure that \u2026 (we) can assist everybody properly by just getting out of the way and ensuring that we can do our business?\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2023 inquiry into Australia\u2019s manufacturing sector, chaired by Labor MP Rob Mitchell, said a commissioner for the sector could act as a \u201cshopfront\u201d for federal and state governments opportunities.<\/p>\n
It would also offer support programs for manufacturers and provide services to aid small operators.<\/p>\n
Labor did not introduce a commissioner but said the government has used \u201csimilar models\u201d to address specific manufacturing challenges.<\/p>\n
The government also said it was establishing a \u201cfront door\u201d for investors to streamline processes under its Future Made in Australia plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Albanese government has failed to learn a crucial lesson from the pandemic, a leading manufacturer has declared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[298920,64,63,99,147,164,98767,22530,267069,16895,298921],"class_list":{"0":"post-615913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-advanced-manufacturing-growth-centre","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-covid","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-fuel-crisis","15":"tag-manufacturing","16":"tag-oil-crisis","17":"tag-pandemic","18":"tag-paul-cooper"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}