A little over a year and a half ago, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was telling Australia that a policy to start moving to electric or zero emission vehicles, which was being proposed by the opposition during the Federal election campaign, was tantamount to ‘the Labor Party coming to take your utes’ . Now after a black summer of bushfire crisis and a year of pandemic challenges, the PM has made a visit to Volvo’s Wacol truck factory in Brisbane to inspect the Swedish truck maker’s local manufacturing operation and to look at its cleaner power systems in the lead up to Australia Day.
Volvo Group’s Made in Australia branding certainly would have been an attraction for ScoMo ahead of Australia Day even if Volvo is about to start pushing its electric zero emission trucks that were seen as such a danger to the Australian way of life back at election time. The visit gained plenty of coverage in the general news media and at the very least hopefully lifted awareness of the fact that trucks are still built right here in Australia, not just imported.
The PM actually got to drive the electric Volvo FL, which will shortly be trialled by Linfox and other fleets and seemed all pleased with a power train that was similar to the ones that he would believe rob the Australian population of its love affair with Utes.
“We make things in Australia, and we make them well,” said Mr. Morrison while at the factory.
“At the Volvo and Mack factory in Wacol, southwest of Brisbane, they’ve been proudly making trucks for Australia and beyond for almost 50 years,” the PM added.
“Our new tax incentive for new investment has meant a surge of new orders, which will be keeping these workers at this plant very busy this year.”
Each and every truck that rolls off the assembly line proudly wears the Australian made logo and because of their continued investment they employ more than 1,400 people and support 90 local manufacturing suppliers, some of whom I met today,” he added.
“Our modern manufacturing strategy is all about supporting business to continue to invest in making things in Australia and ensuring there’s a big future for manufacturing in this country,” he concluded.
