Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for bringing forward these amendments. They do arise from a lot of the evidence that came forward in that committee, but not its recommendations. To be fair, they arise from conversations that the minister and myself have had and that our respective offices have had about the need for an Australian jobs test to make sure that, where Efic is providing a loan to a company that is spent overseas, it provides an assurance that it will deliver additional jobs to Australia. The minister made the point that, where Efic provides loans at the moment, it already has an internal process to make sure that there is no net loss of jobs. What the minister is proposing in this amendment is that the company that would be provided with the loan would provide an assurance to Efic that this would provide additional jobs. We reserve the right to tinker with this amendment in the Senate if we think it might be stronger if that responsibility should rest with Efic rather than the business. The current responsibility that Efic has in its internal policy is that it makes that determination itself, I understand. So we will consider this amendment and see whether it might benefit from some minor changes to it in the Senate. But we support this amendment here.

As I foreshadowed in the substantive debate, I also outlined two further amendments that Labor intends to move in the Senate. With the benefit of the winter break, I am hopeful that the minister and I might have further conversations about the benefits of those amendments and, potentially, a briefing from Efic on how they might work in practice. Subject to those conversations proceeding well, we might find other ways to strengthen this bill further so that it provides support for Australian businesses seeking to export and expand overseas, so that it makes sure there are no unintended consequences from this legislation and so that it creates more jobs here in Australia.

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