Thank you very much for that introduction, and for the privilege of being with you all tonight. Although it seems slightly perverse to say this to a collection of refrigeration and air conditioning experts, it has been a very warm reception and relationship that you have always afforded me in my tim...
Thank you for that introduction – and for the opportunity and privilege of being able to participate again in this great annual event. I’d like to congratulate Anna-Maria <Arabia, the CEO of Science & Technology Australia>, and indeed all of those people who have been i...
Thank you very much for that introduction. I’m very sorry that I’m not there in Canberra today. It’s a great disappointment to me that my recent knee surgery has prevented me from being with you in person in the nation’s capital. But it nevertheless remains a privilege ...
Thank you, Steve, not only for the invitation to be here, but also for the pleasure of being asked to say a few words about this report and about the Coalition’s thinking on innovation. At the outset, I’d like to congratulate Engineers Australia on the very proactive contribution ...
I rise today to speak on the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Bill 2011 and associated bills. I would like to start with some words that appear to be rather wise. They were said at a keynote address to a CEDA convention in Perth last year: “There are two broad possible policy responses to the problems cr...
It’s a great pleasure and privilege to be here today to talk about the future of Australian manufacturing. From the outset, let me say that I believe Australia can have a vibrant, competitive manufacturing future. And it is a visionary government that fosters a diversified and co...
It is a week to particularly focus on the crisis that is taking hold in the manufacturing sector. One would think that, at a time when there are so many cost pressures making our domestic manufacturers less competitive against our export competition and against imports, this would be the last time t...
I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Improvements) Bill 2011. This is a day that Australian industry and the coalition has been waiting for for a long time—around three years, in fact. It was genuinely as long ago as that that the Labor Party flagged that the government would be ta...
The minister, the member for Charlton, gave us one of his least convincing performances. He has this tactic: if you want to have everyone switch off, if the potato is too hot to handle, speak in the most boring monotone voice to bore people into submission. We have a government that is not and shoul...
I rise to speak on the Auditor-General Amendment Bill 2011 and to support the amendments that were discussed earlier by the member for Mackellar. But I also want to take this opportunity to once again call on the member for Lyne in his capacity as the Chair of the Joint Committee of Public A...