Senate debates

Wednesday, 12 May 2021

Bills

Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment (Extension and Other Measures) Bill 2021; Second Reading

7:11 pm

Photo of Louise PrattLouise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment (Extension and Other Measures) Bill 2021 is an improvement on what has been a very chequered history for the government under the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund. But the improvements we have here do not go nearly far enough, which is why Labor has proposed a series of amendments which we look forward to pursuing during the committee stage of the bill.

A range of significant flaws in the bill were addressed in the committee report, but there are also many other areas where we haven't seen the legislation before us go far enough. It's time for action, it's time for jobs, and it's time to see that the $5 billion that's been promised to northern Australia is actually delivering what it's supposed to and what was promised. We can't afford to see in our country yet another episode of the Morrison government overpromising and underdelivering. We need to see the government actually listening to feedback and being more committed than it was last time. We have a government that simply doesn't take on board feedback. It simply shuts down critiques and puts forward its own position. That's not the way to get things done in Australia. Labor, on the other hand, wants to see NAIF work, and we want to see northern Australia reach its potential.

There is a veto power that Minister Keith Pitt made use of recently, and Labor believes that is, and has been, a very dangerous tool. We've seen that, when the NAIF Board did approve a renewables project like the wind farm in northern Queensland, Minister Pitt still had the final say. This is not good decision-making. On the one hand, you've got the ideological position of a government and a minister, and, on the other hand, you've got a board—never mind that it's stacked with a number of Liberals—that has made a good economic decision to support a renewable energy project. Still, Minister Keith Pitt seeks to use his veto powers to overturn such a decision. There are renewables projects like the Kidston pumped hydro project near Townsville. Northern Australia is absolutely full of potential for hydrogen, particularly in my home state of Western Australia—hydrogen, solar and wind, and hydrogen projects that are also driven by solar and wind, as well as tidal and other forms of renewable energy. Hydrogen, as well as other manufacturing and industrial processing, can be, and should be, supported by cheap renewable energy. We should have a national northern Australian infrastructure fund that supports those objectives so that northern Australia can harness its natural potential on behalf of the nation.

We see a timely amendment in one that would encourage the NAIF board to support projects that help Australia achieve net zero emissions by 2050. This is something that Labor very much believes will create jobs and help our environment. I ask those opposite to think seriously about this: where do you honestly think northern Australia, far from Canberra, is going to find its future? Is it only going to be in fossil fuels? No. We know that it's going to be based on its enormous renewable energy power. Yet, we seem to be beset, over and over, by an ideological obsession from the coalition to oppose a renewable energy agenda, to see this kind of interference taking place in organisations like the NAIF. We want to create jobs and help our environment, but, equally fundamentally, we want a future for northern Australia and its people.

In the last 18 months, we've seen a very challenging environment for northern Australia. We've seen drought, fire and floods in the eastern states. We've seen trade embargoes, which have certainly affected Western Australia. We've seen COVID-19. In particular, we've seen significant skills and housing shortages right across the north, be it in Queensland, the Northern Territory or Western Australia. Everywhere I go in Western Australia, there are people struggling to find rentals and companies struggling to find skilled workers. It's been like this for a while. We've cycled through it many times, yet, we find that, particularly in places like Karratha and Port Hedland, this Commonwealth government doesn't want to offer up any solutions.

In terms of the amendments and the objective of NAIF, we really want to see NAIF's investments mandate updated. In this sense, it should include a portfolio benchmark return in line with that of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. NAIF loans and equity investments are in for-profit projects. Labor believes that this should be fair and reasonable; we have an expectation that the government has a return on the investment of taxpayer funds in private sector projects. In this context, again, it goes to why we don't actually look to proper commercial arrangements, where we don't have this ridiculous type of veto power. Frankly, many corporations, given what the interest rates are globally at the moment, could choose NAIF or might say to themselves: 'The risk of pursuing approval through NAIF is simply ridiculous. It's not worth it, because not only have we got the normal commercial arrangements; we've also got arbitrary and ideologically informed veto powers, and this is absolutely ridiculous.'

Key points that Labor has pursued relate very much to the Indian Ocean territories—that they should also be included in having access to the NAIF, and, critically, that First Nations communities are embedded in the decision-making process. It's a dire shame and a dire problem that they have so often been left out of consultation and other processes by this government. We believe that the change that's in the legislation before us doesn't go far enough. It simply doesn't place First Nations people in a decision-making position over the kinds of projects that they would like to see go forth. For example, we very much believe that First Nations people should have a dedicated person on the NAIF board, a First Nations representative. The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation and Indigenous Business Australia require First Nations people on their boards, and, in Labor's view, we don't believe that NAIF should be any different at all.

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