Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to bring hope to the public in my contribution about the great future that is ours to have as a nation. It's a bold vision. It's one that embraces our nation's strengths. It invests in our people. It builds a future that's not only made in Australia but for Australia. For too long, under the leadership of Mr Dutton, the coalition and its various leaders, Australia was hamstrung. We stood by as a nation and just watched the Liberal-National coalition in control. We just watched as other nations actually seized the opportunities of the clean energy revolution. Other countries, because of a lack of leadership and vision by the former government, captured the jobs. They got the industries. Our economic sovereignty that should have been thriving here at home had the brakes totally put on it because of a lack of vision and a lack of organisation and focus on the future for this nation by the Liberal-National coalition, now led by Mr Dutton.

Mr Dutton and the Liberal and National parties were content to let Australia remain a quarry, exporting raw minerals and materials, while the real economic value, the innovation, the manufacturing and the high-skilled jobs that Australians need and want were developed elsewhere in the world. When you are in government, you actually have to make these nation-building things happen. You can't just hark on about the past. It's about the future. Australians understand that, and that's what they want from their government. We don't need to get back on the dead-end track that Mr Dutton wants to take us on. Governments have to be prepared for the future, and there couldn't be a stronger way to move to the future than to create these fantastic highly skilled jobs and value-add to what we do here in the country. That's why the Albanese Labor government is acting. It's why we are delivering a project that is known in the public place as the Future Made in Australia initiative.

The Future Made in Australia initiative is a $22.7 billion package that places an investment in Australia and Australians at the centre of the net zero transformation that is happening. It's driving the next generation of economic growth for this country, and any government worth its salt has to be looking to the future, not the past. At its heart, this initiative is typically Labor. It's about people—the Australian people. It's about securing good, well-paid jobs for Australians. It's about jobs in clean energy that we want to be part of the mix of our economy going forward. It's about jobs in advanced manufacturing and in industries that will power our economy for decades to come, and it's about jobs that will exist not just in boardrooms but in workshops, in factories, in regional towns and in our growing suburbs.

This legislation is brought to the parliament by my good friend and that very significant thinker of economy, and that is our Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. He is very well placed to take Australia forward into the future. This policy delivered under him for our children and for our grandchildren is nation building in scope and scale. I want to commend the leadership of my ministerial colleagues who've woven this vision together. In particular, I want to thank my good friend from New South Wales the Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic, whose clarity of purpose and passion for Australian industry has been instrumental and palpable.

Minister Husic has been upfront in threading together the strands of industrial policy to meet two great challenges of our time: economic diversification and capitalising on the transition to renewable energy. He's taken on that abstract concept, full of multisyllabic words that Australians won't be talking about around their dinner table at night. Having an understanding of these concepts and bringing them into reality—that's the vision and implementation that we've seen from Minister Husic. He's tied these concepts to concrete reality, to progress, to jobs, to the delivery and development of factories and to reopening them after the shutdowns of Mr Dutton and his mates. We have new industries emerging because of the work of Minister Husic and the leadership of the Albanese Labor government to focus on our future and not backwards on a dead-end track. This kind of policy is what real leadership looks like. Governing and doing their day job every day is so much more than making speeches in this place, and it results in great outcomes for the communities across Australia.

This Future Made in Australia initiative will form part of the nation-building tradition of the Labor Party. We've done it before in other areas. Labor is the party of Medicare. Labor is the reason you have that little card in your wallet. Labor has resurrected Medicare on so many occasions. We had to do it again when we came into government in 2022, to fix the mess left by Mr Dutton as the worst health minister in Australia's history. We stand on the shoulders of giants—leaders who believed in using the power of government to build not just economies but societies where fairness and opportunity are within reach for all, no matter where you live. The ministers and leaders of the Australian Labor Party continue to set the national agenda with a focus on the future, turning Australia into that long-fabled light on the hill. It's not just a slogan; it's a living, breathing reality for us and for the people we serve.

We're making it happen with very targeted and strategic investment. Firstly, there is a hydrogen production tax incentive. At $2 per kilogram, this is for renewable hydrogen projects that reach a final investment decision before 2030. There is a critical minerals production tax incentive, which is a 10 per cent credit on processing and refining costs for any of Australia's 31 critical minerals. This means we will be adding value to what we produce here, turning from a quarry into a jobs-producing, benefit-creating economy around clean energy. We're more than just what we dig up. Our people need us to incentivise this industry, and that's what we're doing with that 10 per cent credit on processing and refining. We need to do more than just have a day when we talk about closing the gap; we need to support Indigenous Australians. The expansion, under the Labor Party in leadership and government, of the Indigenous Business Australia vehicle is an important way to increase investment and ensure that First Nations communities, who live on so much of the land where these critical minerals are found, are not just observers or bystanders, watching this happen—watching the quarry—but participants and leaders in the net zero transition as they continue their custodianship of this country into the future. These measures are not handouts. They're not corporate welfare. They are strategic investments designed to unlock private capital, create Australian jobs and strengthen our sovereign capability in industries that matter, not just for today but for generations to come.

There couldn't be a starker contrast. Labor is aligning with business and businesses are making capital available for profit, alongside some incentives from government to grow this industry for our nation. There's that, and then there's Mr Dutton. The market has decided that there's no way nuclear can work in the Australian economy. It just doesn't work. There is not a single individual entity or multinational company—there's no-one—that wants to put nuclear in Australia. But Mr Dutton does, and he wants $600 billion of your money—taxpayers' money—to make that happen. There is no partnership with business. So, any time Mr Dutton tries to tell you that the Liberal Party are the party of business, they need their heads read. They have no idea about co-investment and design for the future of this nation. They want to take us backwards, not into the future.

Let's be clear, my fellow Australians, that we are in a world that is changing at a rapid pace. Our economy competes with the United States, with the European Union and with China. Those countries are investing billions of dollars in clean energy manufacturing. They're investing in hydrogen and critical minerals. They are not waiting for the market to do it for them; they are priming the pump to get that machine running. We've already had lead in the saddlebags from nine years of a Liberal-National Party government that couldn't get their act together on anything to do with energy or creating jobs out of it. We were in a terrible state. Labor had to come in with this vision for the future, and we are delivering it. If we sit back or if we go back to those failed policies of the Liberal and National parties, we will absolutely and certainly be left behind and the jobs that are ours to take in the international environment will be gone. This is the moment. It's a moment that needs vision and leadership, and that is what Labor is offering. We will not let this opportunity pass.

I want to give a shout-out to the great people who live a little bit further north than me in New South Wales, people so ably represented in the other place by my colleagues Meryl Swanson, the member for Paterson, and also Dan Repacholi, the member for the Hunter. They know about jobs. They know about mining. They know about manufacturing. They know what a dud Mr Abbott, Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison were as jobs left their regions.

We know that in a sector such as the aluminium industry, where Australia has been a global leader, facilities in the mighty Hunter region, like the Tomago aluminium smelter, have been pillars in their communities, providing jobs and economic stability. But, as the world moves towards cleaner production methods, these facilities face the challenge of transitioning to renewable energy sources. To support this transition, the Albanese government has announced $2 billion to invest in the Australian-made aluminium industry. It includes the production of green aluminium production credits, providing targeted support, as a government can do if they are interested in these jobs, to aluminium smelters that switch to reliable renewable electricity before 2036. Facilities will be eligible for support for every tonne of clean, reliable Australian-made aluminium that they produce over a period of 10 years. This initiative not only will secure well-paid jobs but will also position Australia to meet the growing global demand for low-carbon aluminium. This is a result of profoundly effective advocacy by the member for Hunter, Dan Repacholi, a champion archer and a champion for the community, supported by Meryl Swanson, the member for that beautiful part of the country known as Paterson, where jobs really matter to everybody who has been involved in these industries over a long period of time.

When I think back on what this sort of investment means for our remote regions, I'm reminded of an old 1922 song, 'Along the road to Gundagai' by Jack O'Hagan. It speaks of a simple shack, familiar places and the comfort of home. It is a song of nostalgia about our community. It reminds me of how far we've come in over a century. But we can't go back. There is no going back on that track. We have to look to the future. Only Labor is creating the policies that will create the jobs and opportunities for our future, our children and our grandchildren.