Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2022. Manufacturing combines some really important factors. One is education, another is innovation and, of course, there is that X factor—determination. These are the vital ingredients for a modern, prosperous economy, and we in the Albanese government are entirely future-focused on that one goal.

Many Australians scanning their homes or workplaces would be hard-pressed to find a product made in Australia. Once upon a time, not long ago, you may have had an Aussie-made appliance in your home or a car in the driveway. What happened? The wave of globalisation and free trade likely had something to do with it—the destruction, that is, of our manufacturing industry—but so did the lack of government oversight and foresight. Among OECD countries, Australia ranks last for self-sufficient manufacturing capability. According to the Centre for Future Work's 2020 report, the aftermath of this neglect of our manufacturing sector was our impotence in the face of a public health emergency, the likes of which the world has never seen.

The pandemic hit, and my own experience, like that of thousands of healthcare workers across the country, was telling. Shortages of PPE like tight-fitting masks—the ones that save your life from a deadly virus when you have no vaccine—led to rationing. I captured the voices of frontline healthcare workers in a study I published in 2020, during the first year of the pandemic, and this is what they said. From a doctor in Queensland:

I'm currently pregnant and put myself and unborn child and my family at risk every time I assess a febrile patient wearing a simple surgical mask (this is all we are to have access too …

Unless there is a confirmed case, and then a N95 mask is provided. From a nurse in New South Wales—and she only wrote in a telegraphed way, because they're busy:

Work in aged care. Do not have access to PPE, is locked up. Have new residents, residents that go to hospital, visit family come back to the facility. I have no PPE to protect myself or them.

From a trainee doctor in Queensland:

The fact that we are expected to work with inadequate PPE is disgraceful, and runs contrary to OH&S regulations in every other facet of working life. At my hospital, we have masks rationed, and are only allowed to use surgical masks to intubate patients. We re-use goggles (when you can find them).

A nurse in Victoria said:

The PPE we have been given has been sub-optimal, surgical masks sent from China with very poor packaging and have been very flimsy/not moulding to our faces properly. We have been told we cannot wear N95 masks until a patient is proven positive, which at times is taking several days. Our health is compromised every day we work and I fear for my colleagues and my own safety.

Our lack of sovereign capability had real consequences on the health system and the community. The work health and safety of healthcare workers was compromised. Over 3,000 healthcare workers in Victoria alone fell sick and outbreaks spread from healthcare and aged-care settings back into the community, prolonging lockdowns. This was all because we weren't making enough PPE here. Not having the right tools in the toolbox has knock-on effects. But this is not the only public health emergency, is it? The other, of course, is climate change.

The Albanese government's historic Climate Change Act, the first in a decade, signalled a complete about-face in our approach to climate change. We went from being climate deniers to climate doers. We see the climate crisis as the greatest economic opportunity for our country, and indeed it represents the second industrial revolution. One of the key bottlenecks to achieving our ambition of net zero by 2050 lies in industrial capability. Will we have enough solar panels, wind turbines, undersea cables, transmission lines and supporting infrastructure, especially when the rest of the world is clamouring for these goods? Will we be ready to scale up the future fuels for those hard-to-abate sectors like aviation, manufacturing or heavy industry? What do we do if we run out of lithium or its extraction becomes unviable?

Peter Griem publishing in Nature Communications in 2020 suggested that flipping over one billion light vehicles globally would result in an acute shortage of lithium. Investing in future fuels, such as biobutanol, dimethyl ether, methanol and renewable hydrocarbon biofuels, is paramount to growing the sustainability of our industrial sector. And that is entirely what we are focused on.

Australian innovation must be in the energy mix of the future. I've been fortunate to meet some of those innovators of the future—people and companies who could be competitive recipients of investor funding or, indeed, our National Reconstruction Fund. Wave Swell Energy, led by one of my constituents John Brown and a team, represents an instructive case study. Harnessing the power of waves, the Wave Swell device positioned near the shore uses an oscillating column of air to turn a low-voltage generator. Inspired by nature's blowhole in Kiama, this innovation has no moving parts below the water so is impervious to the hostility of the ocean. An intriguing functionality is coastal mitigation because adjacent units, each weighing 11 tonnes, act as a breakwater. The company received $4 million in funding from ARENA—another Labor legacy—which enabled a successful pilot off King Island in Tasmania.

Wave Swell Energy has won numerous awards—the latest being the Sir William Hudson 2022 engineers award in recognition of outstanding engineers who show innovation and excellence. It's a company we want to see succeed in Australia. Wave Swell Energy has garnered interest from countries around the world. A 2022 CSIRO analysis of this technology demonstrated that dependency on battery storage would decrease with a hybrid approach that included wave with solar and wind. In short, wave energy could reduce our reliance on battery storage because waves are less intermittent than either solar or wind. That's not a bad outcome when the world is clamouring for a resource like lithium.

The success of this company belies a struggle universal to emerging industries. We accept that some of this comes with the territory, but in a competitive world Australia can ill afford to treat its innovators badly. Our suboptimal track record in taking innovations to market is reflected in our rank of 25 in the Global Innovation Index. We are very good at creating knowledge given our global input rank of 19 but are let down by our conversion to market, denoted by an output rank of 32.

A moribund business investment environment in Australia, which had been declining for years under those opposite, means that the valley of death is a real prospect for early-stage businesses. This is where government has a role. We in the Albanese government want to give innovators an opportunity to make their products here on home soil. The NRF is Australia's biggest government investment in manufacturing in living memory. It is a $15 billion investment fund with a wide remit, focusing on seven priority areas informed by CSIRO's 2020 report COVID-19: recovery and resilience. These seven priority areas are: resources; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; transport; medical science; renewables and low-emission tech; defence capability; and enabling capabilities like quantum robotics and AI, a subject I am very familiar with.

The NRF will be overseen by an independent board guided by experts in industry, finance and science appointed by the Minister for Industry and Science and the Minister for Finance. Investment decisions will be free from political interference, similar to current processes in ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. There will be no colour coded spreadsheets determining the manufacturing direction of our nation. The returns from investment will be reinvested in the NRF, much like the CEFC.

If only the NRF had been operating years ago, we would not be in the position of being the world's quarry of critical minerals delinked from manufacture of EVs and batteries. Australia is the world's largest producer of lithium, yet we capture less than one per cent of the value chain. There are 300-plus gigafactories around the world but none in Australia, despite us having the critical minerals for battery manufacture, coupled with an abundance of land and an overabundance, I might say, of talent. This must change. We want to see these industries take root and flourish here.

On the topic of energy, I had the pleasure of meeting constituents Roland and Megan from Hybrid Energy. Hybrid Energy is using biomass to generate energy and a range of products of agricultural value which also address climate change. Sorghum can grow on marginal land. After combustion using biomethane derived from sorghum biomass, it turns into biochar, which acts as a soil improver and a fertiliser, while the oil that is a by-product of this process is a tonic for plants and also accelerates plant germination. Their visit left a smoky aroma in my office, the smell of opportunity. We have a place in the NRF for these kinds of innovations, and we want to see them flourish.

Daniel Fischl, a constituent and the owner of Linnaea Vineyards, the only winemaker in Higgins—which produces, I might say, a fine drop; thank you, Daniel—shared with me his vast knowledge of viticulture, along with water innovations developed in Israel and California that will be vital for our farmers to survive the pressures of climate change. I may not have farms in Higgins, but I have no shortage of agtech experts like Daniel. The NRF will support these ideas.

As a country, we are blessed with an embarrassment of natural resources. Our task is to take that abundance and value-add, thereby boosting our self-reliance and giving our people career pathways—not just jobs but careers—into manufacturing. A vibrant manufacturing sector will need to be supported by professional services, and that's where my constituents step in. Higgins cannot accommodate large manufacturing plants, but it certainly has no shortage of professionals in IT, design and human resources, as well as lawyers and financiers, to keep manufacturing here and humming.

Cheap green energy will be pivotal to supporting manufacturing, and for that we have started the process of bringing large-scale renewable projects online. Transmission upgrades and offshore wind, as we have already announced, are part of our Powering Australian plan, our key to supplying the energy our fledgling industries will demand. Indeed, the transformation occurring in the North Sea off Britain is instructive. Vast offshore wind farms are cropping up where once oil rigs stood, and they are bringing green hydrogen, floating communities and even ecotourism and energy-hungry data centres. The same will occur in Australia—absolutely it will—and our regions and our cities will be the beneficiaries. When we link nation-building projects like high-speed rail—I had to throw that in—powered by our sunshine and made by Australian talent, the sky is the limit. I hope to see this evolve in my lifetime, but hope is not a strategy. The NRF Corporation is. I commend this bill to the House.

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