Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

There are some great cliches just in the name of the bill, the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024. There are great cliches in the talking points for the government as well. Let me open by saying that just about every bill that comes into this chamber from the government makes 'made in Australia' almost impossible, whether it be energy laws, IR laws or the red and green tape that they are adding to businesses in our community every single time they bring legislation in to this chamber.

As shadow trade minister, I want to really focus on some of the changes that will be made to the export finance authority here in Australia. I want to start by saying that the export finance authority here in Australia does an excellent job. They're a great organisation and a great independent part of government. They have had a role to play in our business community and our export markets for a long time, and they get a lot of support from both sides of this chamber. Just to explain to some of the listeners who maybe don't know a lot about Export Finance Australia, what they're about is helping exporters grow in Australia and find markets for their products and their services overseas. It's pretty straightforward. They have a commercial account where they'll go out and look for gaps in the market. They look for people who've got an idea, a product or a service and are struggling to get finance through normal ways, and they will look at gaps within that and help people do that. They have quite a healthy balance sheet. They're of no cost to government. They don't lose money on that. They're skilful at what they do and they've done a great job.

There's also the National Interest Account, which is a different part of the EFA. What does the National Interest Account do? It's more targeted than the commercial account. There are four facilities within it: the Critical Minerals Facility, the Defence Export Facility, the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific and the Southeast Asia Investment Financing Facility. You can see just from the names of those that there's a focus on that. There's a South-East Asian focus, a Pacific focus or a defence focus. Again, they are looking for gaps that may be important for our national interest or strategic areas of Australia that we need to look at. There are also some transactions that they've done aside from that to New Guinea, PsiQuantum and Digicel.

What this legislation's doing, as a broader picture, is bringing in two new streams. One stream is economic resilience and security, and the other is net zero transformation. I have massive questions about this because—let's take the net zero one to start with—this to me is sounding like the government's going to pick some winners. With all due respect to anyone who may work within government and to the people advising them, I have huge issues with that when there is a competitive market, a private market, already operating in that space. This is one where we might just see a minister go, 'Look, I've got a good feeling about this today; let's throw some taxpayer dollars at it.'

When we talk about net zero transformation, we're talking about moving to net zero by 2050. Every country in the world, every private enterprise in the world and a lot of private investment funds in the world are looking at that transition and investing in technology to do that transition across the field. Whether it be battery technology or industry-specific technologies, they're looking to do that. The fact that we might think there's a bureaucrat somewhere who's got a better idea of how to invest that money—above the skill level within the private sector, who are targeted on this—I can't see that.

I can see that there are gaps. As I said before, there are gaps from the financing world, whether it be venture capital or investment funds. There are gaps when you look at things that we might want to help exporters do in the South Pacific. There might be things exporters want to do within South-East Asia or things we want to do in defence where we need to fill that void, and, again, the EFA do a good job at that. But, seriously, with the net zero transition, the world is focused on it. Every private investor is focused on it. There are no gaps here, unless a minister in the Labor government says, 'I have a funny feeling about this technology or this part of the industry.'

It doesn't seem to be capped. What are the limits to this within the EFA? How will that be reported? How is that going to happen? Again, there are a lot of questions about the net zero transformation. 'Economic resilience and security' sounds great, but what does that mean? What are the caps on that? How much can be spent on that? Again, it looks to me to be a little bit uncapped. I've had a chat with a few people who will be involved in this. I don't see any caps on that.

I want to say again that EFA do a fantastic job. I want to commend them on the job they do. Again, they've had bipartisan support in this chamber for a long time. I know some of the people who work there, and they're highly skilled people and have given great help for export markets within specific sectors, whether it be geographic or specific industry sectors. They have a commercial account that I think is very high achieving, again, helping export markets and exporters in this country. But for this government to basically bring in an uncapped focus for the EFA on net zero transformation, I think, should not be done. It's not a market where there is a gap. The world is focused on it, private investors are focused on it, and I don't see the reason for that.

I also note that it even takes away the export focus of it. Is this fund just going to be focused on Australia's net zero transformation and be put to that? EFA was set up to focus on exporting as its primary motivation. I don't get that within these two new streams of net zero transformation and economic resilience and security. I think it's changing the focus of EFA, too, which is unfortunate. For this reason and many others that members on this side are talking about, we won't be supporting the bill.

To the net zero transformation again, you might say: 'Maybe we should focus on it. Maybe the government should get involved.' We have ARENA and we have the CEFC already as federal government agencies who are focused on that area. To bring in another one, I think, is superfluous. I don't think it's good to bring EFA into it, given it has a non-export focus as well.

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