Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I'm obviously speaking in support of this very good bill, the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2022. It's a major reform for Australia.

The previous speaker's presentation and speech had all the hallmarks of a classic Liberal speech: climate denialism and a bit of union bashing on the side. It had all of the hallmarks of a classic Liberal speech under the Dutton leadership. Of course, the opposition fails to recognise that this particular bill and policy was one of the features of the Albanese government's suite of policies that we took to the last election. We actually put this before the Australian people, and—guess what?—they voted for it. They voted for it in a big way because they do want to see a resurgence of manufacturing in Australia.

The Albanese Labor government was elected to deliver this $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, and that is what we intend to do to keep faith with the electorate. This is a key election commitment that will diversify and transform Australia's manufacturing industry. During COVID, we saw the vulnerability of many sectors of our economy and, indeed, many communities because of supply chain shocks associated with COVID and a lack of access to shipping, to air freight and to other important markets that Australians had relied upon in the past. We know that Australia has the capacity—we had the capacity in the past, and we can reinstall that capacity—to be a leading, powerful nation when it comes to manufacturing. Manufacturing creates good full-time jobs that are high skilled and provide secure conditions of employment for workers.

As the Assistant Minister for Defence, I've been struck by, and tremendously respectful of, the capacities that are being delivered by Australian industry when it comes to Defence Force capability. Both large and small companies throughout the country, with their very skilled workforces, are playing a crucial role in ensuring that Australia's future economic prosperity and our national security are strong and that our sovereign capability and cutting-edge defence industry are underpinning our Defence Force.

After the pandemic, the supply chain constraints on our economy made a difference, and the government recognised the need to build a robust sovereign industrial base at a time of accelerating technological growth and acute competition for workforce skills. This reconstruction fund is the key to delivering on that endeavour. The fund includes defence capability as one of its focus areas, and it will complement the defence industry development strategy and seek to partner with the private sector to build defence capability and economic sovereignty.

Recently I was fortunate to visit RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland and see firsthand the partnership between Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force on technology involving uncrewed vehicles. The program is colloquially known as 'ghost bat'. These are high-tech, uncrewed vehicles manufactured here in Australia, in Melbourne, providing high-tech jobs for Australians, improving the capability of the Australian Defence Force, but, more importantly, providing export potential for Australia. A number of our allies are keenly interested in this technology and don't have similar technology in their industrial base. This is a great example of government being able to work with the private sector to leverage improved capability for our nation's defences, but, at the same time, invest in the high-tech industry and support the highly skilled jobs of the future. We have to build on that capability if we're going to embark on a deeper level of co-operation and integration between the Australian Defence Force, our allies and defence industry ecosystems. The government is committed to growing Australia's industrial base, to provide that game-changing capability that we're going to need into the future.

That is what the Defence Strategic Review is all about. It's also why the new government commissioned the defence industry development strategy, informed by the DSR, to articulate the strategic rationale and the national security imperative for a strong, resilient and integrated defence industrial base. The National Reconstruction Fund will help drive regional development and invest in our national sovereign capability, which will broaden and diversify Australia's economy in support of our national interest.

That diversification and that focus on broadening our national interest is focused on seven priority areas, value-adding in: resources; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; transport; medical science; renewables and low-emissions technologies; defence capability, or course; and enabling capabilities as well. These investments are about ensuring Australia's security into the future. We need to revitalise manufacturing after years of neglect under the former coalition government.

I've had the opportunity to make a couple of trips down to South Australia to see the burgeoning SME defence industry that is growing in Elizabeth and the former industrial manufacturing bases that were the powerhouses of manufacturing in Australia, particularly in the car components and car manufacturing industry. It's such a shame, when you visit the sites where those massive car manufacturing plants once dotted the main road that goes into Elizabeth, to see that many of them are now empty shells of what they previously were in the past. That is because the previous government didn't support automobile manufacturing in this country; they let it wither on the vine. That was a classic example of some of the lack of support that they gave to manufacturing. Their philosophy was simple: let the market rip, and the market will pick winners. Well, the market didn't work in that case. That is why governments of all persuasions throughout the world tend to ensure that they can support their manufacturing industries and boost the resilience of those industries, particularly in the wake of COVID, with the supply chain disruptions that we've had. The ironic thing is that the previous government was then throwing buckets of money at industry to try to reinstall some of that manufacturing capacity that we had in the past that had been lost because it was left to the market.

The new government takes a different approach. We have a strategic interest and a definitive aim of ensuring that we support manufacturing through a fund such as this. The fund will, of course, ensure there is a pool of $15 billion of investment funds that will be invested, and the returns will provide the basis for investments in industry. That will revitalise manufacturing in Australia after years of neglect under the former coalition government.

The NRF will provide finance, including loans, guarantees and equity to drive those investments in those seven priority areas of the Australian economy. It represents the Labor government having a plan to revitalise manufacturing in Australia—a plan to ensure that we're investing in strategic industries that provide the best opportunity for growth, for technological advancement and for high-skill jobs into the future. It's coupled with important policies such as our fee-free TAFE policy and our policy of boosting the number of university places that are accessible, particularly to students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, because, if you invest in manufacturing, you're going to need the skills base to ensure that that manufacturing capacity can grow into the future.

We've got a suite of policies that are all aimed at ensuring that we're looking to the future, to technological advancement, to investment in hi-tech manufacturing and to growth of high-skill jobs that will improve the productivity of our nation and provide higher incomes for Australians. It's a deliberate strategy, and that's what the Australian people voted for. That's why it is bewildering that the opposition still have their heads in the sand and still think letting the market rip is the right strategy when it comes to investing in manufacturing. These leveraged Australian natural and competitive strengths will support the development of strategically important industries and, in due course, shore up supply chains as well. This includes NRF finance to grow advanced manufacturing and support businesses to innovate and move up the technological ladder.

We all know that Australia is rich with valuable critical resources—resources that many Australians rightfully expect would be utilised on home soil to build our industrial base, to add value and to create jobs here in Australia. For decades, we've mined those resources and shipped them overseas only for other nations and industries to process and add value to them. Then we import them back at many times the original price. Sending the manufacturing industry, their profits and thousands of jobs overseas makes no sense, but that's what was occurring under the previous government. Australia's know-how, our scientists and our innovators are some of the best in the world. We know we can process those resources that we mine here and that belong to the Australian people to add value, to create new industries and to create jobs in the process.

I think a classic example where Australia has led the world in technological advancement, in creating new industries, is in the solar and photovoltaic industry. I'm very proud to have the University of New South Wales in my electorate. That is where scientists such as Professor Martin Green were leading technologists in the development of solar cell panels and solar cell technology throughout the world. Basically, most of the solar cells that are produced throughout the world now have technology that was invented and commercialised at the University of New South Wales. That is something that we should be enormously proud of—I certainly am—as the representatives of that. We have the capacity to expand on that, to grow that and to ensure that we're creating jobs in that industry and nurturing it. That is exactly what this government is doing. I was very pleased to be able to go with the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, to the University of New South Wales, to provide them with a multimillion-dollar injection of funds through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to ensure that we're leveraging the scientific development, innovation and work occurring at UNSW in the Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics and to ensure that they're developing the next generation of solar cells. We witnessed some of that innovation in practice, and they are the type of investments that governments should be making in cooperation with industry to leverage industrial capacity and manufacturing into the future and to create high-tech jobs.

The perfect example of how the world views the University of New South Wales was explained to me by a PhD student when I visited UNSW some years ago. I asked him what it was like to work at the University of New South Wales in their solar research facility, and the answer was a simple one but perfectly exemplified why we are so proud of UNSW. He said to me: 'If you want to work in space research, you want to work at NASA. If you want to work in solar research, you want to work at UNSW.' That perfectly explains the capability that the Albanese Labor government is trying to leverage with this National Reconstruction Fund.

See this speech in context