Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak to the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023. In 2022, the Greens took a policy to the federal election to create a $15 billion 'Made in Australia' bank and manufacturing fund, designed to rebuild Australia's neglected manufacturing base and to decarbonise existing Australian manufacturing by significantly reducing emissions in industrial processes. The 'Made in Australia' bank would support and finance manufacturing, innovation, industrial carbonisation and relocalisation of supply chains. The 'Made in Australia' bank and manufacturing fund was born out of a need the Greens have heard from people and communities around the country, especially in places like Latrobe, the Hunter and my own community of Gladstone, for the government to take leadership in fostering a local manufacturing industry that contributes to decarbonisation while providing economic opportunity to often neglected regions.

With an amendment secured by the Greens, we have ensured that, regardless of who is in government, the National Reconstruction Fund will be used to fund to the future of manufacturing and not finance coal and gas or native forest logging. Our amendment has ensured that financing of coal and gas, construction of gas pipelines and the logging of native forests are prohibited investments for the National Reconstruction Fund. The Greens have also secured an amendment that investments made by the National Reconstruction Fund board must align with the legislated climate targets and any future updated commitment by Australia under the Paris Agreement. These amendments mean that National Reconstruction Fund will be focused on its goal of creating high-quality jobs across a diverse economy.

As a regional Queensland senator, I know how important these jobs are for communities. Living in Gladstone, I've seen firsthand the impact that rises and falls in economic circumstances can have on local industries, the people who work in them and their communities. Repeated boom and bust cycles which are dictated by international markets and the whims of unaccountable multinational corporations can be devastating for the economic and social health of our regions. They deserve better. People in communities like mine deserve good, secure and well-paid jobs in innovative, locally owned industries that are there for the long term. Workers should feel secure enough to put down roots and trust that that community will continue to thrive, encouraged by a booming industry. Young people living in those communities should have the ability to remain there, moving into secure, well-paid work when they leave school.

Because of the amendments secured by the Greens, today the National Reconstruction Fund reflects most of the core spirit of the Greens' 'Made in Australia' bank. The NRF will set aside $15 billion to help rebuild an industrial base in Australia. The NRF will have seven priority areas, with $3 billion set aside for renewables and low-emissions technologies, $1½ billion for medical manufacturing, $1 billion for value adding in resources, $1 billion in critical technologies, $1 billion for advanced technology and $500 million for value adding in agriculture. Most importantly, it will not be used as a slush fund for coal and gas corporations or native forest logging.

When they were in government, the coalition tried to use public money to fund coal and gas through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ARENA, but they were unable to do so because of the guardrails the Greens and Labor had put in place. This was a deliberate intervention the Greens made then, and it worked. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments could not poison the well of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to prop up coal and gas. Now the NRF will be similarly protected. It will be focused on genuinely fostering Australian industry instead of padding the bank accounts of coal and gas executives. The opportunity and future of manufacturing lies in renewable technology.

Governments decide what industries to nurture and want to let die. In the past decade, the coalition made a deliberate choice to accelerate the death of the car industry Australia. This was a choice, motivated in part by the supposed benefits of free trade by losing the good, secure, unionised jobs that comprised manufacturing. This choice was made by a government without regard for how closure of the industry would devastate communities reliant on the jobs provided by those manufacturers. Now Australia ranks 91st amongst countries for economic complexity. What this actually means is we have sacrificed our manufacturing industry and our self-sufficiency. In its place, we've chosen to organise our entire economic and industrial capacity around digging up and shipping out coal and gas on behalf of tax-dodging fossil fuel corporations.

Industry policy is about choices. The decision to accelerate the death of car manufacturing in Australia was made for the short-term gain of the ideology of free trade and weakened worker strength at the expense of our own industrial capacity. We have an opportunity and the resources to really seriously tackle transition. Like the rug being pulled out from under car manufacturing, the rug is also about to be pulled out from under coal and gas workers. Workers across regional Australia know that a transition to low-emissions industries will happen. The Greens want well-paid, stable employment for people in communities currently engaged in the fossil fuel industry, and we're working to secure that future so workers will have opportunities for gainful employment in other industries. Our proposed national energy transition authority is a serious body designed to centre workers in this work.

The Greens are the only party facing the reality of the energy transition and we're the only party that took a comprehensive and costed transition plan to the election. As a senator from regional Queensland, I'm here to make sure that our communities are put first, not coal and gas corporations.

While the previous government decided to let our local car manufacturing die, they did not extend this fate to the fossil fuel industry. While manufacturing has struggled, successive governments have heaped billions and billions of public subsidies onto fossil fuel companies. Coal and gas are the main causes of the climate crisis. As the IPCC have set out, for us to have even a shred of a chance of saving our future and meeting a net zero climate target, there must be no new coal and gas projects. This is the view of the conservative International Energy Agency. This is the view of the United Nations Secretary-General. And this the view of the world's scientists.

It is a moral imperative for this government to stop subsidising and approving new coal and gas. There are 116 coal and gas projects in the pipeline at the moment. Combined, they will produce 24 times the emissions that Labor's safeguard mechanism would theoretically prevent. They make a mockery of any commitment to transitioning workers and their communities.

Labor may think they can keep exporting coal and gas for decades to come, but the reality is that our international partners will stop buying it. It's time Labor was honest with the workers in coal and gas and took that transition seriously. No new coal and gas.