Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

He's supposedly running the joint, and he and his fellow career staffers and political ministers will ultimately determine where billions of dollars of taxpayer money will be directed. It will be a captain's call, a Treasurer's pick. As the government appointed head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, recently lamented:

We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on government subsidies, and that can be very effective in coming back for more.

Welcome to the age of entitlement for captain's picks in certain areas of manufacturing. That's exactly what this bill is about to do.

With our current economic reality, there is no room for error when it comes to government investment. Currently $22.7 billion of taxpayer money is at risk, and if we are to have any hope of combating inflation and stimulating growth, an investment of that magnitude has to be a sure thing. I'm not a wowser; I don't mind a punt. But I never bet above my limit and I never bet with other people's money, and that is what this government is doing. They are betting above the limit and they're betting with the taxpayer's money. You see the ads on TV: 'gamble responsibly' and 'you win some, you lose more'. These are the ads that the government is now refusing to remove despite the recommendations by the former member for Dunkley. It seems really ironic. That slogan should apply to the minister and the government here. You win some, you lose more. This better be a sure thing because you will be losing the taxpayers' money.

The bill introduces the National Interest Framework, giving the government power to identify and invest in projects that are deemed of national interest. This means the government will facilitate private investments. Priority industries will be identified under two streams: the net zero transformation stream and the economic resilience and security stream. The net zero transformation stream will be focused on sectors that make a substantial contribution to achieving net zero, while the economic resilience and security stream will centralise on sectors that the government deems are critical to our resilience and that currently need government support to get beyond a starting point. Let me talk about net zero. We have an obligation to look after our planet. Absolutely, we do. We are working together, albeit differently, to achieve that. But let's look at the real facts. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 0.04 per cent. Australia emits 1.3 per cent of that 0.04 per cent, yet with this bill we are hurtling down a road that will impose an impost of billions of dollars on the taxpayer for something that we, as Australians on both sides of the floor, have made much progress in.

Why should we exclude other manufacturers from being able to access this type of funding? Again, it comes down to a captain's call. To obtain Future Made in Australia support, businesses must meet community benefit principles of promoting safe and secure jobs that are well-paid, have good conditions and produce more skilled and inclusive workforces that invest in training and skills development and that engage collaboratively in achieving positive outcomes for all communities. They all sound reasonable on paper. There's no doubt about that. That's the ambition of the nation. How will that benefit the existing manufacturers in my electorate of Cowper who are ready to expand but who might not be ready to meet that criteria?

In relation to the net zero transformation stream, we're actually ignoring the current realities when it comes to our global competitors. The government announced this policy earlier with a $1 billion publicly funded initiative to establish an entire solar panel chain in Australia. The spend was presented in the headlines as a step towards creating a manufacturing base for solar products in our sunburnt country. And who can do it better—right? But the reality is that our current domestic solar efforts are no more than assembly lines for Chinese products. I'm not saying that to be dramatic. It's a fact. It's a reality. We are bringing over Chinese products and putting them on an assembly line to be put together—nothing more. That's not manufacturing.

I listened to the member for Fowler, who's not in the chamber at the moment. She so eloquently noted in her own address on this topic that to establish such industrial capability would require an investment not of a measly $1 billion but many times that. And then we'd still not be competing with China for customers outside our own borders—with a country that not only leads this sector with low-cost but high-quality products but also is supported by having a massive trained workforce at its fingertips. We cannot be blindly arrogant enough to believe that we can compete in that arena. We will continue to import from China. We will continue to just put things together—little Lego blocks. It's equivalent to flogging a dead horse; it truly is.

If the coalition were putting forward a bill with this title we'd handle things differently. We would acknowledge the existing successful small and medium businesses and the burdens that they are currently carrying to keep themselves viable. We'd look at easing those burdens, not provide handouts to individual companies for them to become dependent on. We'd look at tax reforms for successful manufacturers, not at avenues for those without successful business plans to live perpetually off the government purse because they chose products that aligned with the government ideology. We would acknowledge our significant strengths as a manufacturing, mining and agricultural leader and play to those strengths, rather than forcing government ideology and personal priorities onto a free market. We'd look at the crux of every issue. We'd look at lowering inflation, putting downward pressure on costs to businesses, and make it easier for those in manufacturing and regional or rural areas to get on with it.

See this speech in context