Ministers statements: Ethical Clothing Australia
Natalie HUTCHINS (Sydenham – Minister for Jobs and Industry, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, Minister for Women) (14:20): I rise to update the house about Ethical Clothing Australia, the work that is being undertaken and a launch that happened last week where I got to meet leaders from fantastic businesses such Perri Cutten, Bluegum, Humphrey Law and Farm to Hanger. Ethical Clothing Australia provides accreditation to textile, clothing and footwear manufacturers, ensuring workers are paid fairly and work in safe conditions – an extremely important program. So far there are 120 businesses accredited, and I encourage more businesses to sign up. In this year’s budget we doubled our support to Ethical Clothing Australia, making sure they had the resources to do their critical work. In addition this funding will support ethically accredited businesses to engage in government procurement processes. This is all about creating jobs – more local jobs from more local businesses doing the right things by their workers and their safety. This side of the house always puts local workers first through our Local Jobs First and our fair jobs code policies. We are attracting investment and boosting Victoria’s capacities and capabilities here in manufacturing. Our manufacturing sector is worth $33 billion, consisting of 24,000 businesses providing over 260,000 jobs here in Victoria and providing $29.9 billion per year in annual exports – 84 per cent of this industry works full-time right here in Victoria. Whilst this government remains in power, Victoria will remain Australia’s powerhouse of manufacturing, and we will keep supporting ethical manufacturing businesses to thrive.