Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Green amendments (1) to (2), as circulated in my name, together:

(1) Clause 8, page 12 (lines 15 and 16), omit subclause (2), substitute:

(2) For the purposes of this Act, major project threshold amount means:

  (a) for the period of 10 years starting on the day on which this section commences—$250 million; and

  (b) after the end of that period:

     (i) $250 million; or

     (ii) if the legislative rules specify another amount—that other amount.

(2) Clause 8, page 14 (after line 13), at the end of the clause, add:

Project may be deemed to be major project in special and extraordinary circumstances

(11) The Minister may, by legislative instrument, declare that a specified project is a major project for the purposes of this Act if the Minister is satisfied that:

  (a) project expenditure as referred to in subsection (1) is or will be less than the major project threshold amount; and

  (b) there are special and extraordinary circumstances that make it appropriate to treat the project as a major project.

(12) The legislative instrument may specify that the declaration is subject to any conditions imposed by the Authority, including conditions that the Minister directs the Authority to impose.

Project proponent may request that project be treated as major project

(13) A project proponent may, in writing, request the Authority to treat the proponent's project as a major project for the purposes of this Act, if the project proponent believes that:

  (a) project expenditure as referred to in subsection (1) is or will be less than the major project threshold amount; but

  (b) project expenditure is or will be at least $50 million.

(14) The Authority may:

  (a) reject the request; or

  (b) accept the request and declare, in writing, that the project is a major project for the purposes of this Act.

(15) The declaration may be subject to conditions imposed by the Authority and specified in the declaration.

The Greens are pleased to support this bill and commend the government on taking, at least, some small steps to deal with some of the problems that have arisen and the pressures on industry, especially manufacturing, as a result of the high Australian dollar. Also, we note and commend the emphasis on advanced manufacturing that came as part of the package and the announcement. I have had the pleasure of visiting some of those sites, for example, at CSIRO, where I have seen that advanced manufacturing in action where they are able to save up to 90 per cent of their material costs. As far as general manufacturing goes, had we been in the position to draft this bill we would have gone further and imposed local content requirements on some local projects, something that is done elsewhere around the world and something that has proved to be successful. When we know we have the situation on some resource projects here in Australia that, in addition to 83 per cent of the profits being sent overseas, as little as 10 per cent of the steel used is sourced in Australia, we have a significant problem. There is a real concern that we are essentially playing by rules that we do not ask others around the world to play by at all. There is 20 tonnes of steel, I am told, in the average wind turbine, and yet what we are doing in this country is digging up a lot of the ore and shipping it off and then having it processed elsewhere, and then it comes back to us in the form of a wind turbine which may be erected, or often may not in my state of Victoria, where we face restrictive planning laws that are putting a dent in the clean energy industry as well as domestic manufacturing.

A lot of those renewable energy projects are in the range of $200 million to $300 million. At the moment, they would fall under what counts as a major project threshold amount. Accordingly, one of the Greens amendments would have the effect of lowering the threshold so that the measures in the bill regarding Industry Participation Plans would apply to more projects in this country, particularly some of those projects that I have referred to. Indeed, some of the analysis that has been done by the Manufacturing Workers Union suggests that dropping the threshold to $250 million would increase the number of projects that would be caught by the bill by 25 to 30. The total value of those projects that would be caught by the bill is somewhere in the order of $12 billion. I note the WA state government encourages a threshold of $300 million for its AIP Plans.

There is a second part to the amendments, which is to allow in certain exceptional situations the government to declare a particular project to be a major project. This would also allow the government to identify particular projects as being of national significance and national importance, perhaps because of the region they are located in or perhaps because of the kind of work or jobs that they would attract, to identify those as being major projects. That is entirely appropriate because there may be particular needs for particular regions, particular skills that are being used, particular areas where there is high unemployment or particular areas where one project is coming off the boil and it may be appropriate to designate the next project in the line as a major project.

These are sensible amendments and, although they do not go as far as ultimately the Greens would like with respect to local content and so on, they are sensible amendments that I do hope that the government, and indeed the opposition, will be able to support. They are amendments that come with the strong urging of not only the Manufacturing Workers Union but the Australian Steel Institute. They are considered and they would make a significant difference and enhance the scope of this bill. I commend the amendments to the House.

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