Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on our government's Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 and Future Made in Australia (Omnibus Amendments No. 1) Bill 2024. I'm very proud do so because these bills are about our plans to deliver a future made right here in Australia. It's our actions now and it's this government's leadership that will guide us through the net zero transformation that will bring forward significant new investments, harness our strategic advantages and entrench our national resilience—all the while ensuring the benefits of the investments we make are returned to the economy and to communities.

These bills are part of our plan to deliver the next generation of Australian prosperity. As the Prime Minister has said, we are in the middle of the biggest change in the global economy since the Industrial Revolution. At the same time of these economic changes, we are in a period of geopolitical and strategic uncertainty. But we can chart a path to prosperity and opportunity through all this. We can utilise this opportunity to secure Australia's place in the international transition to net zero, to make the most of our natural advantages and to transform ourselves into a clean energy superpower.

Here in Australia, we are so fortunate to have many natural and human made advantages, from our natural resources, our abundant critical minerals, to our sun and our strong wind, to our proud history of manufacturing, research, innovation and technological change. It is all these advantages, it is this expertise, that make it absolutely critical for us to capitalise on and make the most of the opportunities before us to modernise and strengthen our economy.

These bills are about setting us up to prosper from change, not to protect ourselves from it. They will provide an appropriate framework to modernise our economy and deliver industrial policies backed by the evidence and the rigour that is needed to grow investment in priority industries. We are not looking to replace private capital; we are looking and working to attract private capital, and we'll use the power of government and the private sector to maximise economic benefits. And the investors are already lining up.

We're creating the framework for an ambitious industrial policy that will move Australia beyond 'dig and ship', because we can do better than that. This is just the start of our plans. These bills establish our national interest framework—a framework to guide the decision-making of government, that highlights what our national priorities are and that sends a clear signal to investors on where public support will be available to bring forward investments, to grow our critical industries and to deliver a future made in Australia.

The national interest framework will have two streams—net zero, and economic resilience and security. The net zero stream acknowledges the industries of the future—industries like green metals, hydrogen and low carbon fuels that will be critical to decarbonising our industries here and abroad. The economic resilience and security stream acknowledges our place in the world. It sets us up to play an important role and to back ourselves in. These bills also set up the processes for the Treasury to undertake sector assessments. These will be commissioned by the Treasurer in consultation with relevant ministers, and they'll be based on our National Interest Framework. They assess the case for providing public investment, and they'll provide much-needed rigour and justification based on evidence for public support and public investment. Critically, they'll be done—