Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We certainly have gone down this road before, Senator Scarr. Rather than listen to you, I've just spent the last 10 minutes on Google looking at the amount of money your government put into investing in private industry, so let us start with that, shall we? Two billion dollars announced under the Morrison government for the new energy economy, for critical loan facilities and for a whole range of things, like public-private partnerships in infrastructure. There was $500 million directly for carbon capture and storage technology. There was another billion dollars directly to assist private industry to fund low-emissions technology funds, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Medical Research Future Fund. They're just some of the schemes under the previous government. Obviously Senator Scarr has made a loud contribution in here, but he's not loud enough within the Liberal party room.

This is accepted practice, for governments to invest in emerging industries. The simple reason is risk-reward ratios. This is why the Greens, back with the Labor Party in 2013, negotiated $10 billion to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in clean energies, which has been very successful; and $2 billion to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which has also been very successful. We've seen the CSIRO over many years using public money to invest in high-risk, high-reward technologies like the wi-fi we're all using in here on our phones. That came from government leadership in investment. The list goes on. This is a very common thing, and the Greens are proud to support a fund of $15 billion that will keep manufacturing in Australia and re-establish sovereignty in our manufacturing. I'd like to recognise the work that my colleague Senator Penny Allman-Payne has done in regard to this bill today and for her negotiations in getting outcomes on this bill, specifically to wreck funding into fossil fuel projects and into the forestry sector. We do support funding into renewable energy.

As I said, the Greens have a very proud legacy, shall I say, working with the Labor Party just over 10 years ago to establish what I think was a revolution at the time in investing in driving the renewable energy revolution. We don't hear a lot in this chamber, especially in recent weeks with the debate going into the safeguard mechanism, about the fantastic work we did with the Gillard government. We tend to go back a few years, to the Rudd government, and talk about the CPRS. Personally, I'm not sure why the Labor Party continue to write Julia Gillard out of the history books, because she was able to negotiate the clean energy package, which was the gold standard for renewable energy action and driving low emissions right around the world. I was here when that was in the parliament. Obviously it was a sad day to see the Liberals dancing the ring o' rosy when they managed to remove the carbon price and some of the key elements of that package. I do want to acknowledge Julia Gillard for negotiating with the Greens and delivering such fantastic outcomes, which are still with us today and still driving lower emissions around the country, creating jobs, supporting research and development and supporting innovation.

There are a couple of things I would also like to address before I get to my substantive contribution. Senator Polley mentioned that she's proud to see the government investing in retaining manufacturing in Australia. I was here to witness the whole myriad of trade deals that the Liberal Party signed where we did sell our domestic industries down the river, like our car industry. Who can forget the very famous cows-for-cars trade deal with the Korean government, not to mention the Japanese free trade deal negotiations around what was previously the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and the RCEP agreement. We do need to retain sovereignty.

I note that during COVID this issue became very critical. I remember being in this chamber in the early days of 2020 when the proverbial was hitting the fan and we were coming back here to pass stimulus packages and to try keep everything on track. It became really obvious to us that, in areas like medical technology and medical innovation in terms of dealing with this virus, we just didn't have the capabilities and the capacity in this country to even look after ourselves. We were desperately relying on overseas planes arriving from other countries to deliver simple things such as PPE gear. It was clear something was wrong with this country when we didn't have the ability to manufacture and deliver these things ourselves.

I would like to recognise previous senator Rex Patrick: he always used to say there was only one place left in this country that manufactured toilet paper during the COVID crisis, and that was Kimberly-Clark in South Australia, which, through various strange twists of fate, we managed to keep operating in Australia even after relentless pressure to shut it down and move operations overseas. So we at least had one—one manufacturing place in this country that could make toilet paper when we so urgently needed it during COVID. It's really important to reinvest back into sovereignty of Australian manufacturing, not just to create local jobs, new innovation and technology and new industries but also because it's actually part of our national security. It's part of our sovereignty that we need to pay heed to.

I would also like to address Senator Duniam's comments around forestry. We in the Greens have come to expect that from the Liberal Party. And it's very interesting to contrast Senator Duniam's contribution to Senator Scarr's, which was saying the government should invest directly in private businesses. Senator Duniam was in here defending the forestry industry. We have literally put in billions of dollars of public money to underwrite this industry over the years—billions and billions of dollars in both direct and indirect subsidies to keep what are largely small commercial operators functioning.

There's nothing more important in our fight against climate change than protecting our native forests. Yes, we need to plant more trees, we need to regenerate denuded areas and we need to re-wild areas, but protecting our old-growth forests is absolutely critical. They are our first line of defence in our climate emergency. Tasmania has some of the most carbon rich forests on the planet. This has been proven beyond a doubt in places like the Tarkine and Tasmania's south-west World Heritage areas. These forests are essential to sequester carbon. It's no secret—the facts are out there for anyone who wants to check it.

If you look at the Tasmanian government, yes, we're 100 per cent renewables, but why do we only just break net zero? Why are we are struggling if we're 100 per cent renewable in our power generation? Because Tasmania's native forest industry is a massive emitter under our carbon accounting. It is a very significant national emitter, so stopping native forest logging would actually be a very smart thing to do, when we're looking at where we can reduce our emissions and meet our carbon budgets with the restraints we have on them going forward.

It's an absolute no-brainer to protect our native forests. They are our first line of defence in our climate emergency. While I'm on my feet in the Senate, I would really like to pay tribute to some of the groups that have tirelessly campaigned to save these native forests: the Tree Projects guys down in Tasmania, who I was just with on Saturday last week; GRANT, the Grassroots Action Network Tasmania; the Wilderness Society Tasmania; the Bob Brown Foundation; and a whole bunch of other tireless activists, who are protecting these forests not just for their biodiversity value and their value to local community but also because they know we need them to fight climate change. The drier they get and the more we see storms where we get dry lightning, the higher risk they are at.

While logging is still, unfortunately, alive and well in Tasmania—actually, I will take that back, President; it's alive but it's certainly not well, because it's not a good thing to be logging native forests—logging is not the number one threat to our wild areas and our beautiful Gondwana Rainforests. Climate change is the biggest threat to these forests. We need to do everything we can to protect them.

I want to make what I feel like is a significant point in contribution to this debate today, and that's around the circular economy. I will recognise the previous Liberal government took steps, through the waste reduction and recycling reforms we saw in the last parliament, towards building a circular economy, and I'd also like to recognise that the current Labor government are taking the next steps towards building a circular economy. We now have a circular-economy task force, appointed by Minister Plibersek, and I hope we're going to use the current framework in our country to start mandating product stewardship schemes so that we actually get action on things like recycling of plastics and other waste. But building a circular economy requires a whole-of-government approach. In areas like the priority areas that have been highlighted in this fund, like critical minerals and a whole range of other things, we need to take a circular-economy approach to these investments.

I went and had a look at some of the submissions on this bill—for example, submissions from the Australian Council of Recycling. Obviously they commended the Australian government's priority of establishing this fund, but they brought to the attention of the government that they're an industry that needs this investment, and they urge the government to invest in circular-economy principles or invest in industries that could deliver on the circular economy and areas like advanced recycling technologies, which should be included under this fund.

I think we all agree that this is an absolutely critical area that all Australians, no matter their political colour, agree on. We need to reduce waste. We need to build an economy where everything stays in our economy. That's the definition of a circular economy: everything's designed for its end of life; nothing is wasted. It's a zero-waste economy. That way we get to reduce inputs and we get to move to net zero emissions more quickly, because it's taking really important climate action, and we get to invest in Australian industry and keep that expertise here.

Recycling modernisation funds were set up under the previous government that are still able to be accessed by the industry. They will be separate to the kinds of investments we're going to see under this fund. Sadly, there hasn't been a big uptake of those recycling modernisation funds. That's because the recycling industry doesn't want to spend the money, even if it's co-investing with government. They don't want to spend money in this industry, because they don't have confidence that we have the legal framework set up. They know that if you don't mandate, for example, packaging targets to use recycled content—so that when you go into the supermarket 60 per cent or 50 per cent of all the packaging that you see in the supermarket has come from recycled content in Australia—then it wont' happen. Until we get those mandated in laws, they won't have that confidence even to invest in the kinds of funds we've seen today.

We've also seen submissions from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, ATSE, who talk about the need to establish circular economies and urge the government to invest in projects that facilitate the establishment of a circular economy for renewable energy products.

In the remaining minute I have left for my contribution, I would like to move my second reading amendment to the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) is of the opinion that:

(i) building a circular economy is a central element of delivering net-zero emissions,

(ii) a circular economy can bolster Australia's capabilities and reduce supply chain vulnerabilities, and

(iii) the benefits of a circular economy could add $210 billion in GDP by 2047-48, creating an additional 17,000 full-time equivalent jobs; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) invest in projects that facilitate the establishment of a circular economy for renewable energy and other products,

(ii) explicitly incorporate circular economy principles into the seven National Reconstruction Fund priority areas; and

(iii) ensure that the National Reconstruction Fund Board gives regard to outcomes and advice from the Circular Economy Taskforce".

I imagine it wouldn't be controversial, certainly not for the Labor government, to support this. It's very broad. It's in line with what they're delivering in other areas. The Liberal Party of course should support this, because they've taken the first steps on the road to a circular economy. But they'll probably oppose it, because they're opposing everything. Somehow, now that they're in opposition, everything gets opposed. But it would be good to see the Senate come together and vote on something that—it's not binding on the government, but it is symbolic—sends a really important message that we're all on the same page now in trying to establish a circular economy and a zero-waste economy in this country.