Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to be able to make a contribution to the debate on the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023. I'm pleased to also follow the contribution made by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Cash. She made some very important points around some of the issues we have with this bill. I don't think there is a senator in this place who doesn't want to see manufacturing grow and who doesn't want to see jobs kept in Australia or brought to Australia from overseas in the manufacturing sector. The bizarre claim that anyone in this place wouldn't want those things for the people they represent I think should be called out for what it is, which is simply ridiculous.

We might have differences of opinion on how we get to a good manufacturing policy, how we bring these jobs in from overseas and keep them here and how we value-add to the products, raw materials and resources we have in this country. That's a good thing. That's what we do in this democracy. Senator Allman-Payne and I probably have some very different views on things like forestry, but we can still work through them and come to a good outcome on behalf of the people of Australia—some of whom are in the gallery today.

I will start with the fundamental issue that we in the opposition have with this bill—the fact it does ignore some of the economic situations and realities that industry faces. There are things like rising energy costs; a lack of supply of particular materials and inputs into the manufacturing process; labour market shortages; of course increased costs related to labour, which is another key input; disrupted supply chains that arise out of some of these challenges; and increased fuel costs. This bill does nothing to address those issues. Until we address those issues we are going to continually find ourselves coming up against the same challenges. They act as a stranglehold on the growth of manufacturing in this country. If the government were serious about growing this part of our economy—manufacturing—which is something we all want to happen, the government would seriously address those chokeholds, like rising energy costs and having no alternatives to the current energy generation options we have. The majority of energy in this country, as we know, is generated by coal and gas, but we have heard calls for, and some concessions made around, new coal and gas.

We need to acknowledge upfront that the government, sadly, misunderstands the problems faced by manufacturing and, therefore, hasn't properly addressed those issues. There is another example, and we have other legislation before us at the moment. I'm not seeking to debate that legislation, because that would be against the standing orders of course, President. On the one hand we have a bill before us that enables the government to distribute support for manufacturing of various kinds in specific sectors—it's taxpayers' money in effect—and on the other hand we have legislation that introduces new taxes to manufacturing in this country. I refer to—without seeking to debate it—the Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Bill 2022. That bill is going to drive up the cost of manufacturing because of the inability of industry to secure carbon credits to offset their emissions because they won't be able to meet the baseline emissions reductions.

So this one government in the 10 months it's been in power has decided to make it more expensive to manufacture, making it more uncompetitive for businesses in this country to be able to do what it is they do—manufacture cement, aluminium or steel, for example—and then, on the other hand, they've come in as the heroes, saying, 'We have $15 billion to drive manufacturing.' To give with one hand and take with the other, frankly, isn't going to solve the problem. It just highlights that the government doesn't understand what's happening there. And all this is happening with taxpayer's money, which is becoming something that is very much in short supply.

There are other issues I want to touch on in the time I have available to me. Senator Cash has gone through a number of issues around the process for application, how it's going to work, how long it is going to take to access support from this scheme and whether the funding model is fit for purpose given what businesses are up against. Those sorts of things Senator Cash has canvassed well. But I want to turn to the issue of forestry because that is one of those things that was marked out by the government in their election manifesto as a key industry to support. I was pleased that the now Albanese Labor government did support the forestry sector by copying our forestry policy nearly word for word. They added a couple of things. I acknowledge Senator Polley in the chamber here today, a proud Tasmanian who's always putting energy into support for sectors, perhaps not in the right way. But, as a proud Tasmanian, she will support good Tasmanian jobs. They had their policy on forestry. They also said that they were going to include forestry in the National Reconstruction Fund, which they've done, but it's all very unclear to me exactly what this bill will do. So I foreshadow that when we progress to the committee stage I will be asking questions around exactly how this legislation will work and how the program, once established, will be available to parts of the forestry industry and not others.

In particular, I want to touch on native forestry. I recognise Senator Allman-Payne has made some remarks about that. I acknowledge the difference in opinions that we will have. That's a wonderful thing that we can freely do in this country—express different views and, at the end of the day, say, 'Good day,' in the corridor outside this chamber. But only a couple weeks ago the Australian Greens issued a press release about confessions they had procured in return for support for this legislation. My colleague Senator Allman-Payne, in a joint statement with Senator Urquhart and Mr Bandt, the leader of the Greens in the other place, talked about this program and the bill not being allowed to provide support for coal gas projects or logging in native forests and that, in return for that agreement, support for the bill would be provided.

I will start by contrasting that with the statement of the Australian Forest Products Association, a very good entity. They have a slightly different view of what's in and what's out here. They talked about how value-adding in the native forest industry is still part of this legislation. I will come to my reading of the legislation in a moment. Again, as I said, I will have questions in the committee stage to interrogate this, because I want to know what is in and what is out and what certainty there is for industry around that. For what it's worth, I am a supporter of native forestry. I think it is something we should be doing more of here because we do it better than anywhere else in the world—more sustainably and to the world's best standards. People look to Australia and say, 'That's how we want to do it.' We should be very proud of that because, at the end of the day, it is better for the environment if we do it here rather than ripping forests out of the Congo basin and importing the timber here once the value-add has been done, perhaps by cheap labour in another country. We are better off doing it here, having the jobs and the environment credentials here in Australia.