On the way in I had to confess to the council CEO that – don't tell anybody – this is my first time in Bendigo. 

I'm a creature of New South Wales, really – Sydney and the bush. I've been around a bit, but I've never been to Bendigo. 

I think what you saw just then was why Lisa [Chesters, Member for Bendigo] is such an effective representative of this community, and a little bit of what people want to see in their politics. 

Too much of our politics these days is glib phrases, it is slogans, it is sort of funny ideas imported from overseas about how politics works in another country. People want to project that division and anger and hyperbole in Australia. It's not a very successful approach in Australia. We're far too pragmatic for that. 

But our politics is being pulled apart, including over these industrial questions. And the antidote to that is effective local representation and people who care about their communities and who do the hard work. I was watching as Lisa rattled through a number of your businesses, maybe not all of them, but many of them. You can't take that for granted in your Federal MP. That is a really important thing to have, it counts for something. 

And I don't want to make a partisan observation. Far be it from me, I never do that kind of thing. But one of the problems that I see in the politics at the moment is there's not enough of the hard work. There's a lot of the shouting. And people who are my opponents have got a newfound interest in manufacturing and industrial policy, a newfound interest when they discover leadership aspirations. 

Actually, what this area of business requires is depth, is really hard work, because you know that in your own businesses. People talk about what's going on in your businesses and the big investments and the big things that happen. I really believe that it's the little decisions that you make every week with your staff to make those incremental improvements in processes, or a slightly different decision about the way that you do a procurement or that you manage a maintenance cycle or approach the market in a slightly different kind of way, and those decisions just layering over the top of each other make the big investment decisions possible. 

I really only had a few things to contribute this evening. The first was to apologise for never having been to Bendigo before. But secondly, I'm not really here to give you a sermon about the Government's position around manufacturing industry. I will in a moment, but really, I'm here to learn from you. Every great industrial region of Australia is different. Its competitive advantages are different. Its workforce is different. I've spent the morning in Ballarat, and the afternoon in Bendigo. They're very different industrial economies. You are so fortunate to have this university here driving the work that we saw this afternoon, and driving real change and commercial opportunities for businesses, for students, for your workforce, in this absolutely beautiful part of Victoria. 

I wanted to say thank you to you for the work that you do in your businesses. I'm not a Minister who wants to be remote from what is happening in your businesses. I'm very open to direct approaches in my office about the issues and challenges that you face. That is how we get things done. And it's the kind of approach that the Prime Minister is driving through, what is still a relatively young, Government. We want to be a Government that fixes things for people. 

We are in a pretty intensely difficult 2026 with a much unlooked-for conflict overseas driving the biggest energy shock not since the 1970s, but the biggest energy shock in our history. And we are working hard as a Government to manage the immediate questions. 

I was talking with some of your colleagues a few minutes ago about the decisions that we made just before Easter. We were really thinking about communities like this and making sure that, particularly in the tourism and hospitality sector, we were making a contribution towards giving people the confidence that they could travel to places like Bendigo and put on a long weekend in with their families and spend money in the local community. 

We've worked hard to secure as much fuel – particular diesel – thinking about agricultural communities, mining industry, manufacturing and the role of diesel in our logistics and supply chains. We've worked hard to secure fertiliser overseas. 

I will say, there's been some criticism of my approach to securing some of these big foundational industrial facilities and the amount of Commonwealth and State money that has gone into delivering things like the Mount Isa Glencore copper smelter. I’ll just say that I think that is a very defensible proposition. I'm very proud of it. 

The facility at Phosphate Hill, that is Australia's only east coast fertiliser manufacturer and in fact our only manufacturer of MAP and DAP fertiliser, was slated to close on 31 March this year. It had no buyers. We made a decision to intervene in that smelter, and we announced that we would be reserving Australian gas for Australian industry. And that company, suddenly, had six buyers and it's been bought and it will continue to operate. 

Can you imagine, in the middle of a fuel and fertiliser crisis, if our only remaining fertiliser production facility closed? We are thinking about the issues now for you and your businesses, but this energy shock underscores the importance of those economic resilience and industrial capability questions for Australia. And that's my job to focus on those issues. 

We won't get the perfect result – we're operating in very challenging circumstances. We're operating in an environment where our competitor economies are trying to grab areas like critical minerals production and subsidise it to secure production in their own economies. And we are determined to do something about that and to secure local production here in Australia, because it's critical for Australia's place in the world. 

And I know some of these critical metals’ possibilities are real investment possibilities in this region. We are determined to secure the defence capability that Australia needs. I think I've worked closely with Thales everywhere around the country, except in Bendigo, where I'm adequately represented by Lisa, but also the Minister for Defence, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Minister for Defence Industry who have been very focused on this facility. 

We are determined to deliver on the food security questions and a whole range of these areas of real industrial priority for Australia. And we're determined to make sure that we drive a smart agenda in research and development. As I say to audiences around the country, this is a Government that has the biggest pro-manufacturing set of measures in Australian history, ever. My job's not to invent new policies or new programs. My job is to bring alignment to that so that we can deliver it with impact. 

If we do that, we'll make the country stronger. If we do that, the benefits of that work will largely be felt in the outer suburbs and the industrial regions and in regional Australia. 

People are not building new factories in Carlton or Glebe. They are building them in Bendigo and Ballarat, the Hunter Valley and in Central Queensland. And while I don't come from here, I come from a country community. I know what these jobs mean for confidence, for economic opportunity, for pride and for inclusion. People feeling like they are part of the Australian story in places like this, strengthening our democracy as well as strengthening our economy. 

I am absolutely committed to working with you to keep doing those things and to make the country stronger and to do it together.

The $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund that was established in the last term of the Government – we are getting that fund moving, making commitments and announcements in communities all over Australia. I want them engaged here. Nothing ever moves fast enough. I want to see these things move faster and faster. 

We have $5 billion that is there to support businesses who are investing in new energy technology to drive energy costs down, make their businesses more competitive. 

We've got $1 billion dollars in the Economic Resilience Program which is there to support particularly freight and logistics businesses, but also other businesses that are experiencing this shock and having short term cash flow [challenges]. There are many hundreds of applications in with that [program] now, already. It's been open for a week. Many of those applications are being approved quickly and we expect to see that accelerate at speed and support businesses with short-term interest-free loans, just at the point that they need it because they are not able to immediately pass on cost increases to their customers. 

I am, as I hope you can see, pretty enthusiastic about having the job of a lifetime, really, in Australian industry, from research and development and technology through to the big blue-collar facilities that we need for our future. 

I'm delighted to have people supporting me like Lisa in the Parliament, who is extremely capable – as respected in Parliament as she is in this community. A really important advocate for regional Victoria. 

And I'm already learning a little bit about your businesses and your community. I made sure I sampled some of the local wine, it wasn't just because it had sort of gone past five o' clock and I was getting a bit edgy after a long drive. It was fantastic. I think I'll make sure I order a few bottles. 

I made sure I sampled some of the Sonora corn chips, too. You can tell a lot about a community from its food, really. They are not ornaments on the table. Open them, get stuck into those. Really high-quality local food manufacturing and local wine manufacturing. What could be more important than that? 

So grateful, Lisa, for the invitation to come along. I am really keen to engage with this group as much as we can this evening and I wish you all the very best and thank you for all of the work that you're doing. 

Thank you very much.