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

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (5) as circulated in my name together:

(1) Clause 9, page 10 (after line 25), after subclause (1), insert:

(1A) The Minister must, as soon as practicable, cause a copy of the report to be given to the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit.

(2) Clause 9, page 10 (line 27), omit "30", substitute "7".

(3) Clause 9, page 10 (line 29), omit "The Minister may", substitute "For the purposes of laying a copy of the report before a House as mentioned in subsection (2), the Minister may".

(4) Clause 14, page 15 (line 14), omit "The annual report", substitute "(1) The annual report".

(5) Clause 14, page 15 (after line 17), at the end of the clause, add:

(2) The report must include:

(a) the total amount of Future Made in Australia supports provided during the period; and

(b) for each of those supports, details of the following:

(i) the recipient of the support;

(ii) the purpose of the support;

(iii) the kind of support provided;

(iv) the amount of support provided;

(v) the amount of that support that was spent during the period.

I want to be clear. I support this bill's intention because I support measures to get to net zero emissions by 2050. We must focus on this goal if we are to have any hope at all of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. The Future Made in Australia plan put forward by the government is an important pillar to reaching this goal by helping to unlock renewable energy resources and future-focused manufacturing. My community sent me here as their Independent to work towards strong action on climate change but they also sent me here to be a strong legislator, to be their champion for integrity in government decision-making and spending. While in principle I support the bill as a measure towards net zero, I have deep concerns about integrity when it comes to this program because we're talking about tens of billions of taxpayer dollars—$22.7 billion to be exact. In anyone's measure, that is an enormous amount of money.

Right now, the bill as drafted does not give the public a clear and timely line of sight on where their money is going. Instead, the government have only given a vague outline of how the money might be spent, and, when it comes to the fine print, the guardrails, the rigour, they say, 'That will come later; please trust us.' But without this fine print, without an oversight and transparency framework, there is a risk that money will be awarded to industries and companies without merit because of lobbying efforts, because it could win votes in certain electorates. With that concern comes an erosion of public confidence in the Future Made in Australia Bill itself. The government have not shown us they are putting integrity right up front when planning to spend this money.

In order to lead the nation through the momentous transformation to net zero, this government needs public trust above all else. And I'm not alone in raising these issues. The recent Senate inquiry into this bill uncovered the following from respected organisations and businesses. The Grattan Institute said that the bill doesn't currently have enough guardrails to prevent the risk of pork-barrelling. The Australian Chamber of Industry and Commerce specifically raised concerns about processes under the bill. They said there absolutely needs to be public confidence that the system is not being used for the wrong purposes.

The amendments I'm putting forward aim to address some of these concerns. They are simple and straightforward, yet they would give the public greater assurance about how their money is being spent. My amendments would, firstly, require the minister to give unredacted sector assessments to the parliamentary Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit so there is a fulsome parliamentary mechanism to ensure Future Made in Australia supports are given to sectors where it is appropriate to do so. Secondly, 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 in this parliament until around 25 June 2025, some 127 business days after the minister has received it. In my view 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 a Future Made in Australia annual report. I acknowledge that the Treasurer intends to move a government amendment that goes to this point, and I'm grateful for that, but this amendment has less detail than my amendments. Again, it 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, and the kind of support provided and the amount of support provided to and spent by that recipient. These transparency measures are missing from the government's proposed amendments.

As I said, these are simple amendments, and I thank the Treasurer and his office for engaging with me in the way that they have, but I must say I am disappointed that my amendments and those of my fellow crossbenchers, which all speak to this issue of transparency and accountability, have been responded to in a rather piecemeal fashion. If the Future Made in Australia plan is indeed going to seize the opportunities of the move to renewable energy, then the government has work to do to shore up taxpayer confidence and trust in its plans to spend $22.7 billion of the very same taxpayer money. I would argue that my amendments will help fix the holes in the government's current plan, and I urge the government to support my amendments.

Question negatived.

See this speech in context