Marles lands new shadow ministries in reshuffle

CORIO federal member Richard Marles is the big winner of Labor’s cabinet reshuffle, picking up a new super-portfolio of shadow ministries as the party gears up for the coming (but yet-to-be-announced) federal election.

The Geelong-based MP and deputy opposition leader is no longer shadow defence minister but is now the shadow minister for national reconstruction, employment, skills and small business, as well as the shadow minister for science.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday last week about the reshuffle, Mr Marles said COVID-19 had revealed “we simply do not make things in this country today, in the way in which we used to”.

“If you want to think about where all the jobs have gone, you can start right there,” he said.

“As modern economies around the world have climbed the technological ladder when it comes to manufacturing, Australia has stood still.

“And if we are going to become a hi-tech manufacturing country which generates the kind of jobs that we need – if we’re going to become a country like Korea or Germany – then we are simply going to have to change the way in which we see science.”

Mr Marles said science would need to become “front and centre” in the national discussion.

“It is not too much to say that the most significant piece of micro-economic reform which is facing our country today is to infuse our society and our economy with science and technology,” he said.

“As a nation we have to change our cultural relationship to science and I really look forward to being able to tell that story in the lead-up to the next election. Because right now, we are among the worst commercialisers of public research in the OECD. If our Olympic team performed at that level, there would be a Royal Commission.

“As long as that stat exists, we will not be building a modern manufacturing base in this country which generates the kind of jobs that we need.”

Mr Marles said Labor would fight the next election on the need for job creation.

“Jobs that are generated by our small businesses which are the engine room of our economy,” he said. “The kind of good, permanent, long-term jobs that come from having a manufacturing base.

“That is what we are going to be focused on. That is what is going to be central to our message each and every day in the lead-up to the next election.

“That is what the next election will be contested about and that is the choice that we are going to give the Australian people when they next go to the ballot box.”