Richard Marles seizes on science for Covid recovery

Labor’s most senior right-wing MP and deputy leader, Richard Marles, has put science at the centre of the party’s agenda.

Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles. Picture: Getty Images

Labor deputy leader Richard Marles hopes to put science “front and centre of the national discussion”, saying that it is only through innovation that Australia can become a manufacturing nation and create jobs for the future.

Mr Marles, Labor’s most senior right-wing MP, was the biggest winner from Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s reshuffle on Thursday and will take on a new super portfolio focused on the nation’s post-COVID recovery.

His responsibilities will cover national reconstruction, and employment skills and small business, as well as the role of spokesman for science.

“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 like Germany, we are simply going to have to change the way in which we see science,” he said. “Science is going to have to become front and centre.”

He said the pandemic had made it clear Australian manufacturing had not moved fast enough to keep up with new technologies.

“As modern economies around the world have climbed the technological ladder when it comes to manufacturing, Australia has stood still,” he said. Mr Marles issued a rallying cry to Labor’s working-class base that may have felt discouraged at the last election, saying the next election would be fought on job creation.

“That is the choice that we are going to give the Australian people when they next go to the ballot box,” he said. “The vision we offer stands in stark contrast to the wasted, neglectful decade that has been delivered to this country by this government.

“There are more than two million Australians today who are looking for work. That is Scott Morrison’s record and that is what he should be judged upon.”

He also called out the Prime Minister for “abdicating” his role on borders. “When we look at the way in which COVID has played out over the last year, despite the establishment of the national cabinet, our federation has been put under enormous stress,” Mr Marles said.

“There has been an abdication by this Prime Minister and this government from playing the federal government role within our federation and everything we have seen in respect of our borders.” He said Mr Morrison had “ducked responsibility” for an issue traditionally dealt with at a federal level.