Ed Husic has set out campaign messages for the next election – more, but also better jobs for workers.
The Industry and Science Minister spoke for Sydney’s west in a talk to the harbour side toffery at the Sydney Institute last week. It was a speech from the Albanese playbook, emphasising government investing in nation-building industries with an unstated allusion to Ben Chifley – Mr Husic’s dad worked on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Certainly the Minister mentioned universities, but his speech was a pitch to people whose parents and grandparents were in blue collar trades.One message was that industrial skills are way more than they used to be. “The factories of the future won’t look like the ones I grew up with, greasy concrete floors soaked with machine oil and littered with offcuts from the lathes and presses. … Robots, advanced materials, and artificial intelligence are already transforming almost every global industry.”
Another, that skilled workers are essential. “We stand on the brink of seismic change. Of new nation building. Of the global transformation of our energy system. Of new technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing which will define this century like cars and personal computers did in the last.”
A third, that skilled manufacturing workers are the heirs of past generations of tradespeople who had a “sense of pride in making things here, using Australian know-how and Australian resources. When I was growing up in Western Sydney, factories doing just that were a lifeblood for countless families, including my own.”
And that like previous nation builders, this generation’s will be rewarded, with “secure, well-paid jobs in growing industries. Not just a job to support a family, buy a home and enjoy the best our country has to offer. But a sense of pride in making things here, using Australian know-how and Australian resources.”
It was a message in line with the government’s investment in TAFE and one we will hear until the next election and beyond.The Government will go hard on skills because the Greens have eroded Labor’s base in universities. Higher education is now a no-win for Labor – however much it invests, the Greens will complain it is not enough and activist staff and students will agree. Which will be bad for Government members in inner-city seats, like the Prime Minister.
And so it is selling to its original base – there is more Chifley than Whitlam in the strategy.
