Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to thank the member for Wentworth, who has engaged across a range of areas. This has obviously been one of many areas we have discussed, and I've noted her eagerness to understand in particular the various mechanisms of the bill and how they will work together. In respect of the priority areas, before I get substantively to your points but related to them, Member for Wentworth, I mentioned to you and I would like to reinforce to the House that the priority areas that have been selected in the bill have been informed by work of the CSIRO in their COVID-19: recovery and resilience report. They indicated that these areas were important for longer-term economic growth, and we also believe that a lot of the work that can be done within there will have a potentially huge impact in addressing some of the supply chain issues that we believe have driven inflation and have also set us on a trajectory for these interest rate increases that we've experienced. We've got to be able to tackle inflation and put downward pressure on interest rates.

These priority areas represent in large part the work that was put forward to us by the CSIRO. Some has been put in—for example, on transport—because, frankly, we have seen some state governments decide to offshore work that was being done onshore by existing firms, creating good work for people, who then missed out on those contracts before that work came back and had to be fixed anyway. We think that scaling up that manufacturing effort onshore to meet the need to improve the accessibility of public transport, particularly locally made, is a win all round and is really important, so we included that. I am sure you share that view. Obviously there's a lot of work being done not just on light commercial electric vehicles but on heavier industrial applications as well, so transport is important.

In setting those priority areas, we don't want them to be chopped and changed. There needs to be certainty for industry and there also needs to be certainty for the NRF board in making investment decisions. We do want to ensure that there is that degree of stability and allow for that momentum to continue. That has been something I have been very focused on as Minister for Industry and Science. I didn't agree, for example, with a lot of the things that the coalition did in the way they managed the MMI, but I was not, as a new, incoming minister, about to rip up contracts or announcements that have been made, because my view is to keep momentum going and keep building. I don't want to play politics with it; just make it happen. It's the same sort of thing here: certainty for investment and industry is something that we do need to do, so we're not going to chop and change priority areas.

I note there have been number of references to market failure. We are not talking about market failure here. We're talking about the capability that exists in these areas and the need to scale them up. If there are people working in these priority areas that have now commercialised a concept and are ready to scale up, we want to be able to provide that investment. The independent board, conscious of the priority areas, will make that happen. We do want to make that occur. We do want to ensure that, in making that happen, it's done in a healthy way that is that is across the board. It's not just the cities. It's not just one part of the country; it's many. There are a lot of things that we need to do if we want to support, diversify and transform the industry and the economy and deliver financial returns as well.

With regard to your point about market failure, I emphasise that it's a lot harder, as you can appreciate, Member for Wentworth, if you're trying to invest in areas of market failure without fixing the fundamentals beforehand. Getting a return on investment is incredibly hard. That's why I'm saying a lot of these priority areas reflect capability that currently exists and can be scaled up. In my contribution earlier in the debate, I was also very conscious of the fact that delivering a return is not just important for the taxpayers but will be important because those firms are successful on the ground and the communities in which they operate, providing jobs, economic and commercial viability and health for communities, and that is very important too.

So, while we can't support your amendment, I completely understand what is driving that and I look forward to our continued engagement. There's a lot of work to be done. As I said earlier, this is not the end of this work. There's a lot of work that needs to be done here. I open the invitation to the parliament: if they want to talk, we're happy to listen and work. (Time expired)

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