New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has created a new portfolio to drive a domestic manufacturing boost in the state by redirecting procurement dollars towards local opportunities.
The portfolio of Domestic Manufacturing and Government Procurement will be led by Finance minister Courney Houssos, who last week played an important role in shaping Labor’s first Budget for 12 years with Treasurer Daniel Mookhey.
“I have asked Courtney to step into the highly important area of boosting domestic manufacturing and to end the exodus of jobs and ideas offshore,” the Premier said announcing the new portfolio on Tuesday.
Ms Houssos will be sworn in as Minister for Domestic Manufacturing and Government Procurement on Wednesday alongside a new Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education in Steven Whan, who was also appointed on Wednesday.
The Minns government went to the election with a promise to revive domestic manufacturing, particularly for rolling stock for trains, by setting local content targets and increasing tender weighting to back local players.
It has set a target of 50 per cent minimum local content for future rolling stock contracts by the end of its first term in office. Both Queensland and Victoria Labor governments have introduced local content targets and have increased jobs in the sector as a result.
In July, the NSW and federal government held a joint roundtable on the future of rail manufacturing, which Mr Minns described as a “critical first step on the path to our commitment to build the next generation of trains that replace the Tangara here in NSW”.
Independent costings of the election promise prior to the election cast doubt on the plan, however, finding that any actual train buys are so far in the future they are difficult to estimate, and a significant investment is needed for a pipeline of facilities, jobs and skills.
At last week’s Budget, the government provided an initial $43 million for seven new Australian-made Paramatta River Class ferries to replace the 10 defect-plagued River Class ferries that entered service less than two years ago.
But the ferries will be built in Hobart, considered the “next best thing” to reviving manufacturing in NSW, according to Mr Minns, who said he is “looking forward to the day I can announce a brand-new NSW-built ferry”.
“From February 2011 to February 2023, NSW lost 71,000 manufacturing jobs,” Ms Houssos said on Wednesday.
“We need to build things here again and we need to build things that work. Around the globe, countries are focused on rebuilding their local capacity,” she said.
“This includes with direct spending through government procurement, but also getting the policy settings right to encourage broader investment.”
Ms Houssos said she will work closely with Mr Whan to rebuild the state’s manufacturing capability, including through TAFE, which received $112 million in last week’s Budget, and the creation of 1000 new apprenticeships.
