Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 and the Future Made in Australia (Omnibus Amendments No. 1) Bill 2024. These bills are the first pieces of legislation to implement the government's Future Made in Australia plan. According to the Prime Minister, this plan is all about 'seizing the opportunities of the move to renewable energy while becoming a country that makes things again'. What exactly does this mean, though, and how is the government going to achieve it?

The Future Made in Australia Bill before us establishes the National Interest Framework, under which the government will decide whether or not to target public investment in renewable energy resources and manufacturing things like solar panels and batteries. When the government goes to apply the framework, it must determine if the investment fits into one of two streams: the Net Zero Transformation Stream or the Economic Resilience and Security Stream. The bill also allows the minister to direct Treasury to undertake a sector assessment of areas of the Australian economy to determine if they align with the National Interest Framework and if they should receive public investment to contribute to emissions reduction. Finally, the bill requires the government to apply community benefit principles when deciding whether to publicly invest.

The Future Made in Australia (Omnibus Amendments No. 1) Bill allows Export Finance Australia to perform national security and net-zero functions. This bill also amends the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act, the ARENA Act, to expand the role and functions of ARENA so it can support industries under the Future Made in Australia fund. ARENA plays a critical role in increasing renewable energy supply in Australia, and I support this bill to continue supporting ARENA's valuable work.

I want to be clear. I support measures towards reaching our international obligations under the Paris Agreement and towards reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. We must focus on these goals if we are to have any hope of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Fighting for climate action is one of the tasks my constituents set for me when I was elected. Unlocking renewable energy resources and manufacturing is a vital piece of this action. It's why I support amendments that ensure that the government must take into account climate targets when they're awarding supports and that the Future Made in Australia plan is not used to support any new fossil fuel projects, including carbon capture and storage.

My community sent me here as their Independent to represent regional communities and to work towards strong action on climate change, but they also sent me here to be their champion for integrity in government decision-making and spending. And, while in principle I support the bill as a measure towards net zero, I do have deep concerns about integrity when it comes to this program. While I take the member for Makin's point about a big vision, it's our job as legislators to make sure that we look to the detail as well. It's critical to write law that works. We're talking about tens of billions of taxpayers' money, after all—$22.7 billion to be exact—and I want to make sure the public knows where the money is going.

Before I address my integrity concerns that I have—in particular with the Future Made in Australia Bill—I want to briefly touch on the community benefit principles contained in that bill. The bill lists broad community benefits that Future Made in Australia supports may provide. They are jobs, a skilled workforce, the vague phrase 'engaging collaboratively and achieving positive outcomes for local communities', strengthening domestic industrial capabilities, and tax affair compliance. Now, again I want to stress that I support, in principle, policy measures that create more jobs and skills and strengthen supply chains. Of course I do. But when the government talk about community benefit in relation to the net-zero transition, as they're doing with this bill, they've got to show communities much more than this.

I'm not just talking about jobs and skills and supply chains, which are really the only community benefits that this bill and, indeed, the government cite when they're defining 'benefit'. When I talk about community benefit, I'm referring to a definition that's way bolder than that—a definition that's much more ambitious for local regional communities such as those who I represent, not just name-checking them and thinking that's enough. I'm talking about things that tangibly benefit communities for years to come, benefits that leave a legacy that we can point to. When I talk to my constituents about how they define benefits for their communities, I hear people talking about better roads and public transport, affordable and quality health care, aged care, available and accessible child care, community, and infrastructure that's meaningful like decent housing, swimming pools, parks and proper investment in our tourism sites. I've spoken about this type of community benefit many times in this place. I've talked at length about how, unless and until communities start seeing this benefit, they'll continue to question what is in the net zero transition for regional Australia. In some cases, they will oppose renewable energy projects completely.

I cannot be clearer to the government on this point: you must support regional communities to realise and deliver tangible benefits when hosting large grid-scale wind farms, solar farms, batteries and transmission lines and when mining the resources and manufacturing the materials that build this infrastructure. I want to see that, when the government considers whether a potential public investment under the Future Made in Australia plan will provide community benefit, they will look beyond jobs, skills and supply chains. And I want the government to really look at community benefit, not just in Future Made in Australia plans but in all the other work they do with the net zero transmission, whether that be the capacity investment scheme or the net zero economy authority, to name a couple.

My biggest concern with the bill as drafted is that there is a giant question mark where the integrity and transparency measures should be. The taxpayer—the public—does not have a clear line of sight on where $22.7 billion of their money is going. In anybody's language, this is an enormous amount of money. In fact, according to the Parliamentary Library, it's the second-largest budget measure announced in this term of parliament, only after $50 billion was committed under the National Defence Strategy program.

In this bill, the government has created a large bucket of money, with only a vague outline of how that money could be spent. When it comes to the fine print, the guardrails, the rigour, the government tell us, 'Oh, this will come later, trust us.' Well, for such a large amount of money, I think it's more than reasonable that the public should know how it's being spent. Without an oversight and transparency framework, there is a risk that money will be awarded to industries or companies without merit because of lobbying efforts and because it will win votes in certain electorates or for other reasons that generally lack integrity in government decision-making. With that concern comes an erosion in public confidence in the Future Made in Australia plan itself. What a pity.

I'm not saying that the Future Made in Australia plan is an exercise in pork-barrelling. To be frank, we don't know that yet. But the government also hasn't shown us that they are putting integrity right up front when planning to spend this money. It seems rather strange to me that, in putting forward this legislation, with billions of dollars to be spent by this government, not just this government but governments into the future, we're left wondering. I don't like to be left wondering with legislation. A transparency and oversight framework would give the public the assurance that billions of dollars of their money is being spent responsibly and with integrity. It would prevent any pork-barrelling from occurring under this government or, indeed, any future governments.

I know I'm not alone in these concerns. In submissions received by the Senate inquiry recently examining the bill, multiple well-respected, credible organisations have raised similar issues. So let's go through them. The Productivity Commission recommended the data and reasoning underlying sector assessments be made public and the community benefit principles should be applied transparently. I agree. The Climate Council made similar recommendations: that sector assessments should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and debate. I agree. The Grattan Institute noted the parliamentary oversight of the Future Made in Australia plan would be improved if an annual breakdown of Future Made in Australia supports, including expenditure, were published. I agree. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the ACCI, wrote:

… it is essential that all project receiving funding are appropriately scrutinised, so that it delivers real returns to the economy and the Australian public.

Importantly, the ACCI identified a lack of clear selection criteria for Future Made in Australia supports, stating:

If clear assessment criteria are not provided, there is a real risk that FMA funds can be redirected for other purposes or to meet political objectives.

Even BP Australia called for clear and transparent project selection criteria.

So there are clearly gaps in this bill if these organisations and companies, including companies who will surely seek to benefit from Future Made in Australia supports, identify shortfalls on key issues like selection criteria and transparency of funding and sector assessments. The solutions to fill these gaps are not hard to find. Earlier this year I introduced my Accountability of Grants, Investment Mandates and Use of Public Resources Amendment (End Pork Barrelling) Bill. It's a bill which provides a framework to ensure government spending of taxpayer money is done transparently by requiring clear selection criteria for grants and creating a parliamentary joint committee to oversee grant administration. The bill also provides additional oversight of government spending by setting out robust public reporting to parliament on administration, guidelines, selection criteria and approval processes for all Commonwealth grants programs. The bill now before us identifies grants as a major form of Future Made in Australia supports. If my end pork-barrelling bill were passed, concerns about the integrity of these Future Made in Australia grants would be alleviated.

Until the government supports my end pork-barrelling bill, however, there are some simple, straightforward amendments to the Future Made in Australia Bill that would ease integrity concerns. My amendments to that end would require the minister to give unredacted sector assessments to the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit so that there is a fulsome parliamentary mechanism to ensure Future Made in Australia supports are given to sectors where it is appropriate to do so. They would require sector assessments to be tabled in parliament within seven sitting days of the minister receiving that assessment. Currently the bill says 30 sitting days. In practical terms this means that, if the minister were to receive a report on 2 December 2024, it would not be required to be tabled until around 25 June 2025, some 127 business days after the minister has received it. Obviously this is far too long for tabling a report in order to serve its transparency and accountability function. Finally my amendments would specify what should be included in Future Made in Australia's annual report. Currently under the bill it just says that the report should 'include a report on the operation of this act'. Again this is not nearly enough to achieve its intended transparency objective. My amendment would require annual reports to specify the total amount of Future Made in Australia supports, the recipient of these supports, the purpose of the support, the kind of support provided and the amount of support provided to and spent by that recipient.

I am yet to meet with the Treasurer to discuss the concerns I have with this bill and the amendments I'm proposing to improve it, but I'm really looking forward to having that discussion with him. We're getting it in the diary. I will be reserving my position on this bill until after I have that meeting with the Treasurer. In the meantime I want to emphasise to the government that, as we transition to a net zero economy, it is more important than ever to maintain the confidence of the people, including in this bill before us. This bill as currently drafted does not build enough trust. It does not do enough to promote integrity in government decision-making. It leaves way too much still to be determined. And when it comes to $22.7 billion in public funding, that is not good enough. Ensuring that the public can see where and how their money is spent through the measures I just outlined is one critical mechanism to achieving this confidence.

I expect the government to consider my amendments and other amendments to ensure the utmost integrity around this spending. If the Future Made in Australia plan is indeed going to 'seize the opportunities of the move to renewable energy' then the government has lots of work to do to shore up taxpayer confidence and trust in its plans to spend $22.7 billion of the very same taxpayers' money. If this government wants the public trust in this, a signature policy and a legacy, then it's got a lot of work to do.

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