Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Adelaide—an absolute champion for working people and the manufacturing industries of the great state of South Australia. This was a really important milestone, the board that the industry minister announced today for the National Reconstruction Fund. With the assistance of the finance minister, working closely with the Prime Minister and others, the industry minister has put together an absolutely first-class board. And I want to thank, as he did, the eight very distinguished and experienced Australians for agreeing to be a part of the NRF.

The National Reconstruction Fund is all about broadening and deepening our industrial base. It's a $15 billion vote of confidence in our workers, in our industries and in our country, right across manufacturing, renewables, medical, primary industries and critical minerals and in other areas as well. It's all about creating more opportunities for more people in more parts of our country. It's about laying the foundations for a stronger economy and a better future for our workers. And it's all about making our economy stronger and more resilient.

What we learned from the wasted decade, what we learned from the pandemic and what we are still learning from the war in Ukraine is that our supply chains are not resilient enough, they're not reliable enough, they're not robust enough. Because of that, we are more vulnerable than we should be to the sorts of global economic shocks that we are going through.

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