Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I do welcome this day, in being able to speak on this legislation, the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 and the Future Made in Australia (Omnibus Amendments No. 1) Bill 2024. Since July 2023, the average global temperature has consistently exceeded one 1.5 degrees Celsius, above preindustrial levels. I would like to remind all members and our broad community that 1.5 degrees is not just a target and not just a goal. It is a very important threshold that all within the scientific community have recognised as a threshold beyond which major consequences will occur that impact all of us: all of our communities, our children and their children and our environments—everything that we take for granted in our lives.

It's very important to keep in mind the 'why'—why it is important that we supercharge our transition towards clean technologies and clean energy and ensure we develop that capacity. This is a new industrial revolution. This is an opportunity to be part of a global race. Unfortunately, we are behind. I'm a very competitive person, with my background in sport, and it's frustrating to think of where Australia is in this race and the opportunities that we are still reaching for. So we must rapidly develop and supercharge new technologies to rapidly reduce emissions. We must be mindful of that 1.5-degree threshold.

What do we know needs to happen for that to occur? We need to keep up and accelerate the momentum to net zero, and that also means having a net zero economy in the face of what is occurring around the world. We know there is a race on. We now are on the starting line, but we have to accelerate. Progress is possible, but it's not guaranteed. We must have policies that look to the future and that underpin the transition that has to happen.

So I do commend the government. The Future Made in Australia proposal in front of us is a major piece of the economic puzzle that will get us through that transition to a more prosperous future. Whilst we are at record temperatures, there are also records and inflection moments in our economy. There continues to be those who want to delay the transition to clean technologies, to achieving net zero. They want to hold on to the past and they want to stop progress. They want to continue with fossil fuels. They want to continue to spread falsehoods and lies, to give reasons for delay, instead of embracing the opportunity that this global race represents—the move to net zero and to an economy that is sustainable and that will nurture not just our prosperity but also our health and wellbeing and environment.

We know that we need strong, new domestic and export industries. They will be essential to Australia's prosperity. By embracing the race to net zero, we can have an outsized impact on global emissions. This is the bit that always just bewilders me: deniers and people condoning delay who keep talking about what the rest of the world is doing. But the reality is that our environment and our atmosphere does not recognise country borders. As global warming occurs, everyone will be impacted. So what we do with our scope 3 emissions, through our export industries, matters. It will have a direct consequence on every one of our communities.

The fact is that Australia is the second highest contributor to global emissions through its export industries, but we cannot wipe our hands of that. You cannot on one hand say, 'Show me the money and look at all that export funding and revenue,' but then say, 'The problems of global warming and the cost that is coming are just things we can't tackle.' Whilst we don't account for those scope 3 emissions, we will pay the price of them, in their consequences and in the impact on global warming.

I repeat: Australia is the second highest contributor to global emissions through its export industries. The carbon released in the downstream processing of many Australian commodities is huge. According to the Sunshot Alliance, emissions associated with the transport and processing of iron ore is estimated to be around 900 million tonnes annually. That is nearly double all the domestic emissions in Australia. Just pause to think about the scale of that. In working on our clean energy future, we must also address transitioning our export industries and having something more positive to contribute to the world.

That is where the Future Made in Australia program will help us achieve that. Our biggest competitors are already miles ahead of us in this clean energy bonanza and focus, and we need to catch up fast. That's why I commend the scale of the commitment by the government over the next 10 years in supporting that development of clean technologies domestically and through our export industries.

The core aim of this legislation is that Australia needs to rebuild and modernise our export and manufacturing sectors in a climate focused, sustainable way. Embracing this trajectory means we will see hundreds of thousands of well-paying industrial jobs created, support regional and rural economies, and contribute significantly to decarbonisation actions not only in Australia but, importantly, globally. We must do our job as global citizens.

This year's budget included $22.7 billion towards targeted measures for renewable hydrogen, critical minerals processing, and battery and solar manufacturing. Upping the government's investment means a long-term, ambitious package can deliver at least $300 billion a year to clean export revenue by 2035, with about 700,000 direct jobs estimated, mainly, again, in rural and regional Australia.

Australia has been a laggard on climate action. It's what brought me into this place, when the people of Warringah and so many others around Australia were so frustrated at politics being played rather than opportunities being embraced. We're starting to catch up, but we need to pick up the pace. We need to get the car started. We need to keep supporting the transition. We need to accelerate decarbonisation, as the world is reaching dangerous temperature points. We know there are many races happening at the moment. There is a race happening when it comes to the temperatures, but we also have a race—a global one—for skills, industries and investment.

I hosted a roundtable just yesterday to acknowledge climate risk, and the loud and clear message that came out of it was that we will not be able to insure our way out of climate risk and disaster. It is not going to be economically feasible. So the incentive, loud and clear, is to focus on mitigation of emissions and on transition in all aspects of our systems and economy.

The US, since passing its Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, has seen a huge growth in green technology investment. It has drawn, as if it were a magnet, so much investment and focus on manufacturing opportunities to the US. The EU met that challenge by passing the European Green Deal. It has also focused on developing its own capacity and support for manufacturing and export industries. But we have been slow, and I have been critical of the government. We needed a fast response to the Inflation Reduction Act and the European Green Deal.

For us to keep in that race, there are three key, important things in this legislation. Firstly, it will supercharge clean industries, the exact industries we need to reach our emissions reduction goals: batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, and clean ways of making steel, aluminium and other key materials needed for a net-zero economy. These industries are all scaling up. Our sun, wind and mineral wealth right here in Australia means manufacturing can play a crucial part in cutting climate pollution here and around the globe.

Secondly, it will build on the progress we have made. Since 2022, there have been a number of significant pieces of legislation passed through this House by the government, relating to the reformed safeguard mechanism, the Emissions Reduction Fund, the Renewable Energy Target scheme, the Renewable Energy Agency, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Capacity Investment Scheme and the Net Zero Economy Authority. Some of these schemes and agencies are working towards a clean energy economy, but it would be remiss just to give a pass mark. I say to the government that that is not enough. Those pieces of legislation are pieces of the puzzle, but they are all brought together, overwhelmingly, by what targets, incentives and direction we set and what message we send out to investors and the global community when it comes to Australia's commitment to emissions reduction.

There is a moment coming up in just a few months for the Albanese government to really say if it is fair dinkum about emissions reduction, limiting climate change and doing our bit in keeping to 1.5 degrees, and that will be when we determine what our target will be for the nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement. We have to lodge our contribution for 2035 in a few short months. We have heard absolute silence from the opposition. They still have not come to grips with the fact that we must have strong interim targets that keep us within safe temperature goals. The government has a challenge on its plate. It must step up to the plate with a strong 2035 target. I am strongly urging the government to commit to a floor of a 75 per cent emissions reduction by 2035. That sets the trajectory and the road map and sends the message loud and clear to all investors in the global technology race that Australia is fair dinkum when it comes to reducing emissions. Underpinned with pieces of legislation like Future Made in Australia, Australia can get ahead in this race.

This bill is part of an emerging consensus that government must play a role in the net zero transition. In the budget the government nominated five priority areas for Future Made in Australia: renewable hydrogen, green metals, low carbon liquid fuels and clean energy manufacturing. I'd urge the government to also keep a focus on our domestic emissions to make sure that we are electrifying households, fast-tracking the transition to clean transport and looking at technologies like vehicle-to-grid charging. We need to make sure that we are using all the tools in the toolkit to get us there. In practical terms, the Future Made in Australia Bill establishes the National Interest Framework, which will guide decision-making when public-sector investments are made. There are two streams of the National Interest Framework: the net zero transformation stream and the economic resilience and security stream. There will be community benefit principles embedded in all of those aspects, and they are designed to ensure that public investment and the investment that it generates lead to a benefit for communities impacted.

But there are still some details that need to be worked out. I have been engaging with the Treasurer and many of my colleagues around guardrails and greater clarification to be certain of the direction this Future Made in Australia will take us. We are well positioned in our region to take advantage of the transition that is happening globally. As a key trading nation in the Asian region, we can leverage this investment. It's a strategic national-interest focused response, and it can be bold and ambitious. The old economic consensus is shifting. Markets remain central to making it happen, and we need to acknowledge that relying on traditional competitive advantage in that transition to net zero is difficult. But a US$4.6 trillion annual investment opportunity exists globally, and it is there for the taking. We must be key players and participate in it.

So I urge the government to get ambitious and to make sure that we focus on the right sectors to get bang for buck when it comes to public investment. We need to focus on technologies that are genuinely focused on 1.5 degrees and emissions reduction, not just offsetting or kicking something down the road. It must be focused on that. We also have to make sure we engage with communities and that First Nations have a true voice in this process and are considered.

This bill establishes a road map for the future. This is an investment for future generations. It will directly impact the prosperity of the next generations, so we need to make this transition to clean energy as effective and efficient as possible. That means no more gas exploration. This is where the government is again just so conflicted, with their focus on a future gas strategy. You cannot continue to have more gas exploration. We have enough gas. We just need to prioritise where we use it and where it's applied. We need no more coal. The consequences of continuing down those roads and not mitigating climate change will decimate our economy. There's no point in investing in the future if you continue with old technologies that undo all the good work and keep making the problem worse.

I commend the bill to the House, I support the government on the Future Made in Australia, I commend the Treasurer, and I ask him to consider the amendments put forward in good faith to make sure that this bill is robust and delivers its purpose.

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