Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today to the Future Made in Australia bills, The Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 and the Future Made in Australia (Omnibus Amendments No. 1) Bill 2024. Now, the titles sound really good, and it's notable because this would be the first time in over 30 years that we might see the government take a more active role in investing in public infrastructure. We welcome government investment and government ownership in the positive infrastructure to build the society that we need in a climate crisis and to build the infrastructure that our community wants to see investment in. It's pretty clear that we can't rely on the private market to do that, or we wouldn't be in the pickle that we're in and we might not be in the climate crisis that we're in. I reflect also on the level of privatisation that we've seen in the last few decades to indicate clearly that the private market is not acting in the interests of the community; they're clearly acting in the interests of their own profit margins.

We are thrilled that there's the notion that we might become a country that builds stuff again. We have taken to successive elections pro-manufacturing policies. We would love to see some serious public investment in clean, green, positive infrastructure that provides for the community and that protects the planet at the same time. We would love to see that, but we're just a little bit not sure that that's what this bill will actually deliver. That's because there are no guardrails in this bill about what public money can't be used for. There's nothing in this bill that says: 'Well, you can't use this money to open a new coalmine. You can't use this money to open a new coal seam gas well in some of our best food-producing land. You can't use this money to build more weapons components to export to make the world's conflicts worse.' There's nothing in this bill that says that, and that is extremely concerning. One might hope that that's an oversight that the government will be happy to fix when the Greens move amendments to rule out those sorts of things, but I've been here for a little while now and I'm afraid I don't think it is an oversight. In its current form, this Future Made in Australia Bill could very well be a future for the coal, oil and gas industries past 2050, long after when we should have transitioned off fossil fuels and onto 100 per cent clean renewable energy that is job rich and will help us tackle the climate crisis.

I also add that not only does this bill not rule out giving public money to the fossil fuel sector; but we already have $11 billion of public money that goes to the fossil fuel sector in this nation's budget. That is a, sadly, bipartisan commitment multiple successive governments of different colours have all backed in, giving approximately $11 billion of public money to the coal, oil and gas industries, to the private sector, to the fossil fuel companies that are creating the climate crisis that is causing the bushfires, the floods and the biodiversity devastation that we are all suffering from. So don't you think they're already getting enough public money? Why do you need a bill that doesn't rule out giving them even more? We'd like you to see you abolish those fossil fuel subsidies and give that money back to the public in the form of services that will help them—help their lives be easier and help them get access to schools, hospitals and clean energy on their rooftops.

But that doesn't seem to be the direction that this government is heading in. In fact, already in this term of government, since they came to office they've approved 28 new coal and gas projects. So, on top of continuing the $11 billion of subsidies with public money to the fossil fuel sector, this government has approved 28 new coal and gas projects. We had an election. We changed the government. There were a whole lot of reasons for that, but one of those reasons was that the last government was not taking the climate crisis seriously. It wasn't keeping people safe and it wasn't protecting nature from the climate crisis. It wasn't generating all of those tens of thousands of jobs that we know clean energy can provide, particularly in my home state of Queensland. When people voted to change the government, I believe they voted for a policy change. So it's remarkable that we have seen this government, who said they'd be good on the climate, hand out approvals like confetti—28 new coal and gas projects in a climate crisis and $11 billion of fossil fuel subsidies to help companies open those new coal and gas mines to make the world's carbon pollution worse and to make all of our lives and that of the biodiversity we share this world with harder.

Now we have a bill that's ostensibly meant to be about manufacturing, something the Greens strongly support, but doesn't have any restrictions on using this new proposed fund for yet more fossil fuel infrastructure. It beggars belief that the government didn't think about this and decide that if they want to be pro manufacturing it's got to be good, clean, green, pro-community investment and infrastructure that they support. Yet here we are.

It's very telling that in the Senate inquiry into these bills we heard from Chevron and Japanese gas giant INPEX that they're already angling for more public money. In fact, in their submissions to the inquiry on these two bills, they had glowing praise for a related policy that we believe is inextricably linked to this Future Made in Australia Bill package—the Future Gas Strategy. INPEX and Chevron were saying how fabulous they thought the Future Gas Strategy was and how crucial the stable supply of gas for export was to a future made in Australia. So, of course, they supported these bills. When fossil fuel companies are praising this Labor government's Future Made in Australia Bill's passage then it's pretty clear who's going benefit from it. It's pretty easy to see through that spin.

The government has made clear its intentions to pursue its Future Gas Strategy, which envisages a role for gas in our domestic and export economy long after 2050, when all of the science says we need to be off fossil fuels. We know that gas is just as dirty as coal when it comes to fossil fuel pollution because of all of the associated scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, particularly to liquify it for export and all of the ambient fugitive emissions that occur in that process. So we have a Future Gas Strategy from this government which says: 'Sure, we're going to keep gas in the economy, in the system and in our biosphere after 2050.' And we've got new coal projects being approved by the so-called environment minister that would be open past 2070. Not only that but we have a resources minister under this government that has opened up 46,758 square kilometres of ocean to new gas fields. I thought we voted for a change of government, and it is getting increasingly harder to tell the difference between the two large parties on the stuff that matters, like not burning the place down.

A future made in Australia cannot be a future for coal, oil and gas and, under these bills, there are no limitations on what would be funded by Treasury or Export Finance Australia. As long as it's deemed necessary to advance our economic security and resilience, it can get funding. This could also mean manufacturing weapons to send into occupied territories and war zones. It could mean that, because it doesn't rule that out. That would be entirely unacceptable during a genocide, and many members of the community have raised their concerns about this particular ambiguity with me. It could mean not only funding weapons components but that the Treasury or Export Finance Australia could, for example, finance the building of import LNG regasification terminals in developing countries so that they could get hooked on Australian gas and those gas companies could once again rake in the profits, pay very little—or no—tax in Australia, cook the planet and laugh all the way to the bank. It could mean kickstarting a petrochemical industry domestically that locks in dependency on new gas fields for decades to come. Those examples were the ones that were aired in the hearings of the inquiry into these bills, and the conclusion was,

As to petrochemicals, there's nothing in that legislation that would preclude the minister from tasking Treasury to do that work.

Sticking with petrochemicals for the moment, the Albanese government has already committed $1½ billion of taxpayer money to prop up the Middle Arm gas and petrochemical precinct and US gas company Tamboran through the coalition and the Labor Party voting together to protect the Beetaloo cooperative drilling program. The Greens tried to remove public funding for that. They voted together to continue to shovel public money into the pockets of a US gas company. They've got exclusive rights to build a 6.6 million tonne gas export terminal at that site in the Northern Territory. They don't have First Nations consent for that, of course, but then we don't have laws to require that either. That's yet another thing the Greens are trying to rectify, yet again without support from either big party. The Northern Territory government has also promoted that site as a petrochemicals hub, in keeping with the gas-fired recovery report to the federal government that intends to turn the region into 'a gas based manufacturing industry for northern Australia'. Since that submission, the Northern Territory government has submitted its stage 2 business case to Infrastructure Australia, seeking total federal funding of $3.6 billion. All of those developments taken together make the gas processing and petrochemical hub at Middle Arm a prime candidate for further taxpayer support through the Future Made in Australia legislation, because nothing in these bills rules that out. Certainly, all of the gas giants—and, it sounds like, the Northern Territory government—are already seeing this as the next slush fund that they can raid to pollute the place even more.

Public funding to expand the gas industry is unfathomable in a climate crisis. That's why we are calling on this government to redirect that existing $1½ billion to possibly $3.6 billion federal subsidy for Middle Arm to support clean industries, and it's why we'll be moving amendments to this package of bills to restrict funding streams to prevent public money from this fund going to coal, oil, gas and associated infrastructure that would lock-in long-term dependency on fossil fuels. It's not the first time we've moved amendments to say public money shouldn't be spent on fossil fuels. When the NAIF legislation went through this place, probably a decade ago now—it might have been a bit before that—we moved similar amendments. Did we get support for that at the time? No, we didn't. Surely, in the passing 10 years the weight of climate science has not missed anyone in this chamber, and, surely, you might now consider not allocating public funds to fossil fuel projects from this new slush fund that you're proposing. That's what our amendments will seek to do. Not only that; please can you stop approving new coal and gas projects.

The $41.4 billion to be spent by the government on fuel tax credits would also grow substantially above that amount under a future made in Australia. This is because mining companies operating in a remote area will be paid 50.6c for every litre of diesel burned in a generator. This fossil fuel subsidy massively discourages capital investment in off-grid solar, wind or hybrid energy sources to power a mine. That's why we're also calling on the government to end the fuel tax credit scheme for mining projects. This would remove the financial incentive to burn subsidised diesel instead of those companies having to makes investment in off-grid renewable energy systems.

Adding value and jobs by processing minerals in Australia would also create additional emissions and gas demand unless plans are put in place before this law passes to prevent the need to open new gas fields. If gas demand is expected to increase then, to make sure that that increased demand doesn't necessitate new gas fields being opened, we need to make sure that there's large-scale electrification of homes, of businesses, of industry and within our LNG terminals.

There's a lot of fantastic information here that unfortunately, having squandered my time, I cannot share. But the nub of this is, of course, that we are very pro government investment in manufacturing. What we are not for is government investment in new coal, oil and gas. There has been a massive oversight with this bill, if I can be so generous to this government. There is a massive hole in it that would allow public dollars to be tipped in to burning the planet even more. Many of those companies don't even pay tax in this jurisdiction, and they're making life harder for all of us and the species we share this world with.

I also want to flag, as I did before, that there are serious First Nations concerns about the ongoing sidelining of free, prior and informed consent and what happens on country. That's the case with the Middle Arm development, and we urge the Albanese government to finally redress this.

In its current form, these bills could just be a slush fund for coal, oil and gas, and we can't stand for that. (Time expired)