Alan McDonald: EMA Advocate wants greater security for manufacturing businesses, election outcome irrelevant

The Employers and Manufacturers Association is pushing for a bipartisan approach to business policy ahead of the election.

The EMA wants greater certainty for businesses. Including plans for manufacturing, a clear energy future and stable settings. 

Head of Advocacy Alan McDonald told Mike Hosking that as long as everyone can agree on the major settings, it shouldn't matter which government gets in. 

He says the changing back and forth over the past decade has been highly problematic. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Election. Your wish list is starting to be filled out
by various people. The manufacturers this morning telling us they'd
like to see legislative stability across governments to stop the
bleeding and the sector they're talking about, the d industrialization
of the country. Alan McDonald is the HEADOG of Advocacy
and Strategy at the EUAIN is with us, Allen, Morning, Morning, Mike.
Same with infrastructure, isn't it. We want people to make decisions,

(00:20):
stick with decisions, create a pipeline and we're off to
the races. Is that how it works?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yes? And I think with infrastructure in particular, we seem
to be getting close to something that looks like we
have an agreed plan and we'll stick to it. So
that's a great thing.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Good. So what you're looking at, let's just count them off.
Stability and certainty. You don't really have that. Do your
infrastructure and consenting you'd be happy with that, happy issue
with that.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, I think the direction of travel on that one
is pretty good, and I think both of the major
parties are pretty agreed on the spatial planning piece of it. Yeah,
there's some noise around the environmental side and a couple
other bits and pieces, But I think on that one
they kind of line up everything I've heard from the
labor guys that I've talked to says they're okay with that,
and David Parker's piece of legislation last time around as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, energy supply, we're getting there, aren't we.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Not as clear as we would like on that one.
You know, I think we've gone from being internationally competitive
to a supply and a cost that is routinely cited
not the only reason, but one of the main reasons
for shutting down a number of our businesses, and that's
contributing to them.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
The renew of ellen, the renewables, the solar panels, the
turbines are spinning, the investment is all there, they tell us.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, there's plenty of those, but you also need some
thermal backup for that, and you also need to be
able to get the energy from where it's generated to
where it's needed, and there's some regulatory handbrakes in the
way of that that make it difficult. For example, you
can't build ahead of the generation being built, which seems
a bit counterintuitive, but that's the rules that Transpower in

(01:50):
particular works.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Under yeah, employment legislation, you might have an issue, mightn't.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
You If there's a change of government, I think we'll
see particularly fair pay agreements, which just national awards by
another name that been promised to come back and don't
see the need for those. They don't work and they
just create. Well, in Australia's case, they've got one hundred
and fifty of them now, so you have one hundred
and fifty different minimum wages.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
And this in calling for what you want, great idea,
nothing wrong with it until you get a centrist type
government and a left leaning version of the Labor Party.
As long as you've got that, you've got trouble, haven't you.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Look. I think if we can agree on the major guardrails,
the major settings if you like, you'll always get some
noise around the edges. But it shouldn't really matter what
flavor of government we get, And to be honest, we
don't care. Obviously we've got some preferences with some policies,
But as long as you can agree on the major
settings and you make some changes to around the edges,

(02:49):
then that's okay. But we just continual flip flopping that
we've had over the last decade or so. It's just
been highly problematic.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
I'm right good to talk to you Allan McDonald out
of the EMA this morning.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
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