Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

MITCHELL () (): Before the House right now are two very big pieces of legislation: the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 and the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2022. These two bills represent two key planks of the Albanese Labor government's election platform: to address the nation's housing affordability and homelessness crisis, and to strengthen the country's sovereign manufacturing capabilities. Together, the bills will put $25 billion into reserve funds, the proceeds of which will be used to fund various initiatives.

You wouldn't think that this would be controversial. Both measures were key planks of our election platform and both measures address key pressure points in our economy. But the Liberals are opposing them. The Liberals are opposing an initiative that will, over five years, build 20,000 affordable and social homes—4,000 of which will be reserved for women and children fleeing domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness. The Liberals are opposing the provision of 10,000 homes for frontline workers such as police, nurses and cleaners who are being priced out of being able to live near where they work.

The Liberals are opposing the National Reconstruction Fund, a manufacturing fund that will back thousands of jobs in our regions. The Liberals often talk about sovereign borders but they seem to have no idea about the importance of sovereign capability. We know from the pandemic the importance of making more things in Australia so we are less dependent on global supply chains, which can all too easily be broken.

This Labor government wants to value-add our raw materials. We don't want to dig up our critical minerals and simply ship them offshore for processing; we want to turn them into finished products, here, at home. We want to back our brightest minds so that they don't feel they need to go overseas. If we mine it here, we should make it here. If we invent it here, we should make it here. Yet the Liberals are simply not onboard.

They are running the same arguments against the NRF that they used to run when they opposed Labor's creation of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation 10 years ago. Never mind that the CEFC has invested $11 billion and leveraged $2.61 of private sector investment against every dollar of government funding. It's been a success, by any measure. But that does not matter to the Liberals who, under opposition leader Peter Dutton, are channelling the 'oppose everything' blueprint of Tony Abbott. In doing so, they clearly have decided to put their own narrow ideological and political interests ahead of the national interest.

Unfortunately, it's not just the coalition—or the 'noalition' as they've been referred to in the main House. The Greens too, I'm sad to say, are playing cute with the housing legislation. If they join with the coalition in the Senate, it makes it much more difficult for the government to get this package through the Senate. My message to the Greens is this: think of the First Nations people, the women, the domestic violence victims-survivors, who will continue to suffer if this legislation is not passed by this parliament. The parliamentary process is not a game nor an opportunity to horsetrade whenever you see fit. The stakes in this place are Australian lives.

Frankly, I'm tired of being lectured to by Greens MPs who come into the parliament to tell us to do more about affordable housing, while Greens on councils around the country oppose projects that would provide more affordable housing. They come into this place demanding action but do nothing to demand, from their own colleagues, that Greens dominated councils get behind affordable housing projects.

Both housing and national reconstruction were key planks of Labor's election platform last year. We could not have been clearer with our intentions. Yet the Liberals—I hope the Greens come onboard—have said they're opposed to this and remain opposed. They stood right here, in this parliament, so many years ago and baited the Australian car industry into leaving this country. You know what? That's exactly what the car industry did. They left, taking with them components capabilities, manufacturing abilities, the skills, the know-how. We've lost it all. We've lost that sovereign capability to manufacture motor vehicles.

The NRF's investment decisions will be independent. It's important that we say this because for too long, while those opposite were in government, decisions were made in the interests of the coalition and their mates, not in the wider interests of a national interest. The focus on this government is on renewing, revitalising, rebuilding, Australia's manufacturing industry for Australians—for small-business owners, for the regions, like mine, for jobs. The Liberals' opposition is about playing narrow political games, because they think they can score a win on the media cycle. They need to look at the wider national interest. The pandemic taught us we need to improve our supply chains, we need to build more things here. The opposition have a choice, a choice of revitalising manufacturing or turning their backs on Australian manufacturing once again.

The NRF will be independent. It will have an independent board that makes independent decisions about investments in Australia's best interests—not in political sectional interests, in Australia's best interests. So the irony of the coalition talking about inappropriate ministerial discretion is just so rich. There won't be a colour coded spreadsheet in sight, and there certainly won't be a secret industry minister making decisions for their mates.

The NRF is one of our key planks, as is the Housing Australia Future Fund. Other key planks of this government in the eight months since the election include fixing aged care, strengthening Medicare, extending paid parental leave, making medicines cheaper, providing fee-free TAFE, funding extra regional uni places, improving the NBN, creating the National Anti-Corruption Commission, launching the robodebt royal commission, a renewable energy future and holding a referendum to include First Nations people in the Constitution and provide a voice to the parliament. We are getting on with the job that we were elected to do We are just eight months in, and repairing the damage of nine years of Liberal neglect is a big job. We are not wasting a day.