Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate on the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023, and it's been interesting to hear the various contributions so far. But let's be clear: this bill is essential. This is an essential step for our country, for rebuilding our industrial capability and for creating secure and well-paid jobs. The lack of vision that we saw from the Liberal government has led to policy drift and decline in our manufacturing self-sufficiency. This bill is not just another piece of legislation; it is a crucial step towards rebuilding our industrial capability, creating those jobs and securing our future prosperity. And I assure Senator Roberts that it is most certainly in our nation's interest to pass this bill. We saw very clearly through the pandemic that our ability to manufacture world-class products and ensure our national resilience was brought into question. We sailed dangerously close to not having the supplies that we needed. We had challenges with PPE, with ventilators, with the things that were essential for us at the time, but we did not have the capability to produce them ourselves because we import the bulk of what we need from overseas.

The fact is that we have the smallest manufacturing industry relative to domestic purchase of any OECD country, and we need to address that. To ensure we have a prosperous future, we must prioritise building robust and adaptable industries that can produce essential goods in times of crisis. And to address one of the points raised by Senator Cadel, the safeguard mechanism, which will hopefully be introduced into this chamber later this week, will work very well with this bill. We have huge challenges to decarbonise our industry, and having those available funds to invest in essential areas will work exceptionally well with the safeguard mechanism. There is no shortage of enthusiasm or skill in business and in industry right across this country. We just need to harness it and structure it because we are heading in the right direction.

The opportunities we have as a nation are boundless. Australia is an innovative country, and we've proven that time and time again. But we must develop the pathways that allow our science and technology brains to create those new ideas and then allow our industry brains to turn them into profitable, deliverable, sustainable industries of the future. We're all tired of hearing about organisations going overseas because they couldn't find the capital to back their idea here but had a willing investment partner overseas. We can end that, and that's exactly what we are looking to do in taking this step. We can support those great Australian ideas into fruition, and this bill is Labor backing innovation, backing entrepreneurs, backing our industries and backing the growth of new organisations in our manufacturing sectors.

The plan to boost our regional economic development and accelerate our transition to becoming a renewable superpower, increase investor confidence and build on our natural and competitive strengths is quite frankly a no-brainer. Furthermore, the corporation will assist Australian industry to seize new growth opportunities by providing finance for projects that add value, improve productivity and support transformation. This fund will achieve similar structures to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which has been raised a number of times throughout this debate. The CEFC has proven that these kinds of structured funds do genuinely work. I remember that, when the CEFC was first brought to bear, there was a sense that it would default and there would be a lot of defaults within some of financing structures. But that was not the case. It has been a very successful structure, and basing this restructuring bill on that is a wise move because we know that it can work.

A lot of the intellectual property we have in various areas gets exported. We've seen that in the medical development industry and we've seen it, as has been mentioned here, with solar panels. A significant amount of that intellectual property was developed here but was shipped overseas, where it was further developed. The product is developed and then we buy it back. There are so many opportunities for us to cut out that step, to keep our industries and ideas onshore to the fruition of their development. That's good for us as a country, it's good for jobs, it's good for industry—it's good for everyone.

I think what we've seen, with the Liberals' lack of vision, over the past decade has resulted in us falling to last place in the manufacturing self-sufficiency index among OECD countries. That's not something to be proud of; that's something we should seriously address. This trend has to be reversed, and the National Reconstruction Fund is the first step in that direction.

This bill is a golden opportunity for us to revive Australia's ability to make world-class products, create well-paying jobs and secure a future prosperity. We cannot miss this opportunity. I encourage everyone in this chamber to put aside the political barbs and think very seriously about what this is doing for our development, our regions and our future in industrial and manufacturing opportunities.