Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024. In short, this bill establishes a hydrogen production tax offset that is available at a rate of $2 per kilogram of eligible hydrogen for companies that satisfy certain eligibility criteria. The bill also establishes a critical minerals production tax incentive for expenditure incurred in carrying out registered processing activities.

Let it be clear to all that the coalition will be opposing this bill, and with good and clear reason. Labor's Future Made in Australia policy is about building bureaucracies, not businesses. The coalition does not believe in permanently underwriting businesses with taxpayer funds. When faced with the COVID-19 emergency, a once-in-a-century crisis, the coalition rightly stepped in to ensure that Australian businesses could stay open, workers remained employed and families were supported. These measures were deliberately targeted, temporary and scalable, designed to address the unique economic and health challenges we faced. They allowed Australia to emerge from the pandemic in a world-leading position with record low unemployment, strong GDP growth and historically low interest rates. We made those decisions in the national interest, but we have been clear since the election that the time for these kinds of government interventions has passed.

Since taking office, Labor has taken Australia from a world-leading position to the back of the pack on interest rates, inflation, productivity and economic growth. Australian households and businesses are paying the price for Labor's economic mismanagement. Instead of addressing the fundamental issues holding back our economy, this government is doubling down on bad policy. The coalition will not support a policy that subsidises businesses for the costs of Labor's bad policies. On workplace relations, environmental approvals, the safeguard mechanism and company tax, Labor is strangling our manufacturing and resources industries.

Instead of fixing these problems, they are proposing a costly and bureaucratic subsidy scheme. This bill does not deliver widespread tax relief. It does not reduce energy prices. It does not cut red tape or remove Labor's punitive industrial relations measures so that businesses can reduce overheads, employ more staff and charge better prices. Instead, it establishes production tax credits that will not provide a cent of benefit to most businesses for years, while costing billions of dollars to the taxpayer into the 2040s.

Australian small businesses have already been hit hard by Labor, and this policy does nothing to support them or the minerals and resources industry. Even businesses that do qualify will face enormous hurdles just to access these tax credits. According to Labor's own analysis, applying for these credits will cost businesses at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first year alone, and hundreds of thousands in annual compliance costs over the duration of their operation. Why? Because Labor is burying business in more red tape and regulation.

To receive these tax credits, businesses must navigate multiple layers of bureaucracy, engaging with the Clean Energy Regulator, the department of industry, and ARENA—all before even reaching the tax office. Worse still, businesses that are seeking access to these credits will be hostage to Labor's undefined community benefits principles, which the Treasurer will determine via regulation. This is a back door for social procurement and ultimately for the CFMEU. Under this scheme, if there is no union agreement there is no tax credit.

There hasn't been a policy space invented yet that Labor cannot somehow wrangle into a sweetheart deal and opportunity for the Australian trade union movement—a union movement so increasingly irrelevant to the lives of ordinary working Australians that Labor is forced to legislate its continued existence through policies such as this. Such is the apathy and, frankly, disdain that ordinary Australians now have for the trade union movement.

The coalition opposes the bill because, first, it ties businesses up in red tape instead of providing them with widespread tax relief. Second, it locks in subsidies for decades, until the 2040s, and we do not support ongoing taxpayer funded handouts for businesses, believing instead that government intervention must be temporary, targeted and scalable. Third, the community benefit principles are unclear and politicised, leaving companies to comply with vaguely defined criteria in order to receive a tax credit, giving the Treasurer sole discretion over community benefit principle requirements, and there are concerns about potentially forcing businesses into union agreements to qualify.

Fourth, the bill does not apply equally across all businesses. It excludes major sectors, such as gas and nuclear power, despite their strategic importance to Australia's energy future. The coalition thinks the instant asset write-off is a fairer and more effective industry initiative. Fifth, there is a concerning lack of transparency, with key decisions bypassing the National Interest Framework. And, again, the Treasurer, not industry experts, decide which sectors will receive funding. And sixth, the bill's economic viability is questionable. Treasury and the Productivity Commission have not endorsed elements of the plan and warn that it could divert resources from more-productive sectors.

Much of this was raised in greater detail by coalition senators in their dissenting report in the recent inquiry into the bill. We noted some additional critical failings that went undisputed by Treasury and witnesses, both supportive and hostile to the policy. These included the fact that tax credits did not come into effect for more than two years, that a failure to comply with the community benefits principles will lead to a reduction in the tax credits available, and that in addition to union agreements the community benefits principles could range from duplicative environmental or Indigenous consultation practices to onerous tax disclosures.

It's important at this point to share some perspective from stakeholders. The Minerals Council of Australia noted concerns over duplication and regulatory burden in its submission to the inquiry:

The Australian minerals industry produces critical minerals utilising world leading sustainability standards, including best practice environmental management and community engagement…

We understand that the requirement to comply with 'community benefit principles' is an overarching requirement of the Future Made in Australia Act.

However, there are already extensive and rigorous approvals process that mining and mineral processing projects must adhere to makes this an unnecessary and duplicative feature of the CMPTI.

That was the view of the peak mining industry association of our country. This was also the view of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who submitted to the inquiry:

The additional engagement processes required by the community benefit principles parallel existing requirements of the planning and approval process. This is simply adding a further layer of administration and compliance, without any clear benefit.

In contrast to the government, the coalition has a better plan for Australia's economy. We will extend the instant asset write-off and make it permanent, providing an investment allowance for tens of thousands of Australian businesses. This policy rewards businesses that invest in themselves and in Australia by lowering their tax burden. Unlike Labor's scheme, which won't take effect for years and will only benefit select industries, our policy applies to all industries immediately. It supports new investment, boosts productivity and helps businesses to grow. It does not subsidise businesses just to keep their doors open.

Labor has the chance to vote for this policy. We'll be moving an amendment to an upcoming bill over the next parliamentary sitting week and we invite Labor's endorsement. But, of course, we know that they will vote against it, like they have with previous bills, because for Labor it isn't about growing the economy or growing the economic pie so that more Australians can benefit and so that we can have more productive businesses, hire more staff and increase wages; unfortunately, for Labor, it's about backing big businesses and big business cartels. It is about picking winners for Labor, because Labor know that they know best—increasing government control over the expertise of private enterprise. However, that is simply the path to economic stagnation, rather than economic progress, because we've seen it for 2½ years under this Anthony Albanese-Dr Chalmers led administration.

Labor's second-term economic plan is already unravelling. Their first-term economic policies led to higher inflation, rising interest rates and declining productivity. Their second-term agenda is more of the same. The Productivity Commission has raised serious concerns about Labor's Future Made in Australia plan. A $1 billion commitment to manufacturing solar panels in Australia should have been subjected to a tougher national interest test, but of course it was not. By allowing sectors to bypass the national interest framework, Labor is undermining its own rules and processes.

Key investments critical to Australia's energy future—carbon capture and storage, gas, blue hydrogen, uranium and nuclear—have been explicitly excluded from Labor's Future Made in Australia policy. The Business Council of Australia has warned that these procurement rules risk subsidising industries that Australia will never have a competitive advantage in. That is not how to build a productive and resilient economy in a fast and ever-changing world. Indeed, Danielle Wood, the Treasurer's hand-picked productivity commissioner, stated that supporting industries without long-term competitive advantage creates an ongoing cost and diverts resources from more productive parts of the economy. Indeed, former Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks described Labor's plan as a 'fool's errand' that risks repeating past mistakes by propping up politically favoured industries.

Of course, this particular legislation has raised important concerns for Western Australia. In their dissenting report, coalition senators paid special attention to Western Australia and the threat posed to its international competitiveness. I echo those remarks again here this morning. Western Australia, of course, faces unique challenges in competing for critical minerals investment. Renewed commitment and technological advancement overseas, including in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia and China, present serious challenges to the prosperity of this sector in Western Australia. The inquiry evidence was that Western Australia is already losing out to global competitors, who are already implementing production tax incentives.

Critically, the tax credit in this bill is not available until 2027. So, in fact, this characteristic of the bill actually creates a competitive disadvantage for Western Australia. Those familiar with the west will know that projects there already face significant regulatory delays. The bill fails to address these significant regulatory delays that already exist in the system, missing an opportunity to make WA more attractive for investments. AMEC noted:

Australia has long approval timeframes, land access issues and high construction costs.

The PTI must be paired with serious regulatory reform to reduce the regulatory burden faced by companies developing projects.

WA's resource sector clearly needs more than tax credits; it requires streamlined approvals and infrastructure support. Of course, all of that is absent from Labor's plan. Absent from Labor's plan are any steps to reduce already long approval times. Absent from Labor's plan are any steps to improve land access issues, and absent from Labor's plans are any efforts to reduce high construction costs.

Finally, there was ample evidence to confirm that Western Australia already has a high level of existing regulatory standards which make the community benefit principles an unnecessary regulatory burden for Western Australia in particular. To mining firms that already adhere to strict regulations, the principles represent red tape and cost to Western Australian projects, which, again, jeopardise WA's future competitiveness.

This bill is a folly. Unfortunately, some have advocated for this initiative, even in my home state of Western Australia, and they should be careful what they wish for. This is, indeed, an attempt to re-regulate, reimpose consultation process and reduplicate already significant costs to Western Australian projects. I suspect it will end in tears for many Western Australian industries and, indeed, future projects. Thank you.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, there's nothing surprising here, is there? The opposition are opposed to a future made in Australia. Why doesn't that surprise anyone? The opening comments from their frontrunner on this debate say, 'We don't want transparency, and we don't want opportunity for Australian business.' They also go further, to say: 'Not only do we not want transparency and opportunity but we don't want business and community to take advantage of a future made in Australia. We don't want everybody in the entire community to take the advantage of having a future made in Australia and the national opportunity that that gives.'

This legislation complements existing marketplace operations, and it also establishes a hydrogen production tax incentive worth $2 per kilogram of renewable hydrogen produced and a critical minerals production tax incentive worth 10 per cent of relevant processing and refining costs for 31 critical minerals—a measure which also doubles as a national security initiative. We all remember COVID and all the problems we had then. We know the challenges we have in the modern world. This is a national security and national interest initiative. But really this bill is an investment in Australian jobs, Australian businesses and Australian communities. We aren't taking the Liberal approach of showering businesses with money and just hoping it trickles down to Aussie families and communities. We aren't spraying out cash to people like Gina Rinehart to have taxpayer funded long lunches. Get this: the opposition leader Mr Dutton's idea of national interest is a $20,000 Gina Rinehart fun pack for a party, because nothing says support for small businesses like tax breaks for billionaire lunches.

Unlike Mr Dutton, we are making sure that every cent spent is supporting Aussie families, Aussie communities and Australian businesses that help with that initiative. We're doing that by requiring businesses receiving this funding to comply with community benefit principles so we all share the benefit—everybody in the community shares the benefit. Those principles are straightforward. They are things that ensure that money does what it's intended to do.

The first one is promoting safe and secure jobs that are well paid and have good conditions. Heaven forbid! Those opposite don't want that. They've just criticised it in their opening arguments about why a future shouldn't be made in Australia. The second one is to develop more skilled and inclusive workforces. Those opposite spoke just now against the whole concept of having a more skilled and inclusive workforce. That skilled and inclusive workforce means equipping regional communities and young people with the skills they need to take full advantage of the net zero transition.

The third principle is to engage collaboratively with and achieve positive outcomes for local communities. That means more economic opportunities and ensuring communities have an active say over their regions. Those opposite don't want the regions to have a say. They don't want the communities to get the economic benefit. We can do this collectively together as a community and benefit the market, the business communities and those doing those jobs. The fourth is to support First Nations communities to participate and share the benefits of the net zero transition. That means real tangible economic opportunities for First Nations peoples. The fifth principle is to strengthen domestic industrial capabilities through local supply chains. As I said before, we all remember COVID-19 showing how vulnerable international supply chains are and how important it is to strengthen sovereign capability. Those opposite are opposed to it. The final principle is to demonstrate transparency and compliance in relation to tax.

Every cent in this program will go towards better national security outcomes, well-paid secure jobs, upskilling and strengthening domestic manufacturing, improving tax compliance and working with local and First Nations communities. It's similar to schemes that already exist in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Canada. Who would have a problem with that? Those opposite. Businesses love it. The bill is supported by a long list of employer groups like the Minerals Council, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Business Council. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry, ACCI, said that these measures make it easier for new industries to establish and become competitive. Working people love it, and, yes, unions love it too. Everybody is together, except those opposite.

The Australian Workers Union told the Senate inquiry that it would support the pipeline of proposed hydrogen and critical minerals projects creating 160,000 jobs in the construction phase and 41,000 ongoing jobs. That's 200,000 well-paid jobs, with most of them in regional Australia. The National Party and the Liberal Party—particularly the National Party sometimes—pretend to support the regions, except when it comes to jobs and well-paid jobs, except when it comes to working with local communities, except when it builds Australian businesses, and except when it makes a future made in Australia. They stand for nothing and support nothing in their communities.

The two different visions for Australia that voters have to choose from at the next election are very clear. The Albanese Labor government supports a future made in Australia. We support Australian jobs, Australian industry, and investing in Australian communities. Or you've got the Dutton opposition who abandoned the car industry, who opposed every cost of living measure this government has introduced, whether it was tax cuts for every Australian, energy bill relief, cheaper medicines, cheaper child care, free TAFE, record pay rises or reducing student debt. Mr Dutton has opposed every single one, because his vision result is a poorer, weaker Australia. That's the result. It's one where you work longer for less and the only thing the government is good for is a taxpayer funded lunch for bosses. That's their proposal. No matter which way you look at it, you'll be worse off under Dutton.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens are supportive of the intent of the Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024. We're currently working through some of the details associated with this legislation with the government. The intent of this bill is to encourage investment in renewable hydrogen and critical minerals and expand the remit of Indigenous Business Australia. Decisive action to tackle climate change and a rapid transition to renewables are critical. They're critical not just in the fight against climate breakdown but also in terms of the opportunities they provide for this country. We welcome in-principle government support for truly sustainable and green energy industries, and we acknowledge that such government support is an important part of achieving the rapid decarbonisation that we need to achieve in Australia and indeed around the world.

The urgent need for a clean energy transition presents a unique opportunity for this country. We've got an opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower, a global leader in renewable energy and a global leader in decarbonisation. Schemes like the tax credits proposed in this legislation are really important to create market confidence and to encourage the investment that we need to see in Australia in order for us to become a true renewable energy superpower at a global level. We're very well positioned to achieve that aim, but we need to make sure the right settings are put in place. We need to make sure that those settings unblock global bottlenecks on the resources that are needed for national and global decarbonisation. Inputs like renewable hydrogen and critical minerals will undoubtedly be a key part of that. They have great potential to contribute significantly to Australia's economy and to contribute significantly to new jobs that can be created in the transition out of fossil fuels and into renewable energies and electrification.

Doing this properly would mean that we can transform our economy from an overreliance on old methods of generating power, old energy grids and old industry sectors. As we go through that transition, we can support workers and their communities at the same time as we take strong action on climate change and to protect our environment. So, for those reasons, the Greens welcome government support for realising Australia's global renewable potential. We hope that the government will continue to engage constructively with us to ensure better outcomes for the climate.

I do want to be clear though that, while investment in, and more certainty around, renewables is important, it is only one part of the puzzle. Polluting projects have to be phased out. Polluting technologies have to be phased out. But we see time after time that Labor is in thrall to the fossil fuel corporations. Make no mistake—just like the LNP, the Labor Party is at the beck and call of giant fossil fuel corporations. These corporations donate millions of dollars every year into the coffers of not just the Liberal and National parties but also the Labor Party in Australia. The Labor Party and the Liberal and National parties join together to deliver the outcomes that those giant fossil fuel corporations demand of them. At times, this chamber seems more like the board room of a coal or gas corporation than it does the upper house of the Australian parliament.

Under Labor, emissions are up in Australia. Let's be clear about that. Since Labor came to power nearly three years ago, with a much vaunted set of policies—according to them—to address climate change, emissions have gone up in Australia. Not only have emissions gone up; Labor has approved 32 new coal and gas projects since coming into power. This is at a time when the science is clear, at a time when the head of the United Nations is clear, at a time when we see climate-driven disaster after disaster around the world, at a time when millions of people are being displaced from their homes, at a time when many thousands are dying—we have seen the bushfires in North America—and at a time when, if you can't understand that our climate is breaking down and ecologies are collapsing around us, you are simply not paying attention. At these times, Labor has approved 32 new coal and gas projects in less than three years. Hand over fist, they are bowing down to their corporate masters in the fossil fuel sector. Since Labor came to power, emissions have gone up, and 32 new coal and gas projects have been approved. Labor has committed to a future for gas beyond 2050 in their Future Gas Strategy, which was written for them by their corporate masters in the gas sector and faithfully delivered by the supplicant Labor government in this place.

Billions of taxpayer dollars continue to be poured into sustaining coal and gas—including, for example, funding for the Middle Arm project. All this has gone on while the climate breaks down and the planet continues to heat. As a result, our economy, our environment and our people are at risk. We've already shot past 1.5 degrees of warming in Australia, and the world is on track for a catastrophic three degrees of warming. Extreme weather continues to devastate communities, from the floods in northern Queensland that are still posing problems to many people to the fires currently burning in my home state of Tasmania. We saw the winter wildfires just recently in California in the United States.

I want to say a little bit about the fires currently burning in my home state of Tasmania. There is a grove of huon pines that the Meredith Range fire has burned right up to within the last 24 to 48 hours. That grove of huon pines contains the largest known and recorded huon pine in Tasmania. Some senators will recall that we had a Senate inquiry subsequent to the catastrophic 2016 fires which destroyed so much of the globally significant ecological communities in Tasmania, including pencil pines and other fragile alpine ecosystems. Some of the recommendations of that inquiry included more work being done to understand the behaviour of fire in certain ecosystem types and significantly more resources being allocated by both the Commonwealth and the Tasmanian government to things like remote-area firefighting capacity and aerial bombing. I want to place on the record that those recommendations have not in their entirety been complied with by the Tasmanian and Australian governments. As a result, precious ecosystems are currently being threatened by fires in many Tasmanian wilderness areas.

I want to place on the record the Greens' thanks to people who are fighting a number of fires currently burning in Tasmania. We acknowledge the risk and the danger that are posed to people who fight fires, particularly in remote areas which obviously often entail very difficult terrain, either for access or for on-the-ground operations. In some terrain, we acknowledge that getting boots on the ground is somewhere between very difficult and impossible to achieve. But we need to make sure that the Tasmanian government is providing our firefighters with adequate resources and that the Tasmanian government is ensuring that the protection of natural and ecological values is considered as fire management decisions and decisions around how to respond to fires, which fires to respond to and how many assets to commit to any particular fire are being made.

Some of the ecological community is at risk now. I acknowledge the cold change that went through last night, which provides us with an opportunity now to ensure that we do the work necessary to protect ecologically critical areas as well as, obviously, built infrastructure and human life. There is now an opportunity to do that work that can protect them for when the weather inevitably changes and fire risk, and the risk of fires spreading, increases.

So we now have a scenario where we are seeing the impacts of climate change and we have a government that is in thrall to the fossil fuel industry. Let me make a very confident prediction to Labor, Liberal and National senators sitting in this place: history is not going to regard what you're doing now well. You are on the wrong side of history by being in thrall to fossil fuel corporations, by continuing to devastate our native forests and by continuing to approve coal and gas projects. The two major parties are in absolute lockstep. There's not a wafer of difference between them on support for fossil fuel corporations and on approvals for new coal and gas projects and for destroying our native forests. There is not a shred of difference between the two major parties, and you will be recorded by history as abrogating your responsibilities not just to the climate and nature but to the Australian people and, in fact, people all around the world. The verdict of history will be savage on you, and you will be found to be comprehensively on the wrong side of history.

You cannot keep approving new coal and gas projects while our climate is breaking down around us. You cannot sit idly by and watch emissions continue to go up. You cannot continue to destroy our precious and beautiful globally significant, carbon-rich, biodiversity-rich native forests in the middle of a climate crisis and expect history to view you kindly. That is not going to happen. You will be viewed savagely and harshly when the history of these times is written. You will be viewed savagely and harshly because you destroy our native forests, because you are in thrall to big coal and gas corporations and because you continue to approve new coal and gas projects—32 new coal and gas projects in less than three years since Labor came into government. History will judge you for what you are: climate criminals and destroyers of nature at a time in global history when we need people to protect nature and to actually go in and deliver strong, urgent climate action. That's what we need, not supplicant behaviour to the giant fossil fuel corporations and the native forest loggers.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024. Well, if it was unclear before, it is certainly made even less clear now. The Albanese Labor government is completely confused. Where they name a bill 'nature positive', they risk significant increase to carbon emissions, and, where they name a bill 'future made in Australia', they suffocate one of the fastest growing sectors that we have. This bill promises a 10 per cent production tax credit to Australian companies in the critical minerals sector, but it's not without the typical add-ones of a Labor government bill, a definite hindrance to economic and industry growth. Described by Mr Gary Banks as a 'fool's errand', this bill is the Albanese government's latest attempt at dampening our vibrant resources.

Australia's economic decline has been happening at pace under this government. Australia's economy has gone from leading the world under the coalition to trailing the world under Labor. By any economic measurement, Australians are now worse off than they were three years ago. We trail the rest of the world on interest rates, on inflation, on productivity and on economic growth. Australians with a typical mortgage have spent more than $50,000 in additional interest since Labor was elected. Every Australian knows what this is about. Those on that side seem to avoid the pain, because their lack of action in ways that actually have a material impact, a positive impact, demonstrates that they don't really understand it. But everyone else out there who is feeling the cost-of-living pressure knows exactly what it means. It's impacting upon their wellbeing. It's impacting upon their ability to make ends meet. More and more Australians are living pay cheque to pay cheque. And, in fact, even more now are living beyond what their pay is able to deliver for them.

The cost-of-living crisis is impacting Australians. It costs 45 per cent more to build a house than before the COVID pandemic. Underlying electricity prices are now 30 per cent higher than they were before the last election. And Labor have done nothing to address the issues in our energy system. In fact, what they've done and the measures they've put in place have actually made things worse. Under Labor, Australia is experiencing the longest household recession on record. GDP per capita has gone backwards for the past seven consecutive quarters, and Australia has returned to the weak economic growth of the 1970s. That's how far you've got to go back! Yet, the Treasurer parades around like he has presided over an economic renaissance. It's like he has put up a big banner saying, 'Mission accomplished!' It's unbelievable. Australians don't feel that.

Yes, the inflation curve might have moderated, but the prices that Australians have seen increase are now baked in. Their wages have not kept up with those increased prices and are not likely to without causing even greater inflationary pressure. The small and medium sized business sector continues to suffer under Labor's watch. According to the January 2025 NAB SME Business Insights report, three in four small to medium sized businesses believe their costs will increase over the next 12 month. That's a 76 per cent increase. This means prices will continue to rise for Australians. Forty-one per cent of SMEs expect the level of red tape experienced by their business to increase in 2025, a key cost impost on business, which, of course, increases consumer prices.

Yet again, this Albanese Labor government has shown nothing but contempt for the Western Australian mining industry, an industry that I'm very proud of, particularly coming from Western Australia myself. I'm very proud of it. Time and time again this government is wrapping our industries in red tape and creating an array of hoops for businesses to jump through. The prosperity of this nation right now is contingent on a thriving mining industry, particularly in Western Australia—and, of course, I'm sure Senator Roberts will speak about the virtues of the mining industry in Queensland.

This Labor government is hell-bent on repealing investment in the sector. Their decisions are having a chilling effect on investment into this important sector. The Minerals Council of Australia has already stated that the community benefit principles outlined in this bill will likely drive up costs and slow down projects. The Business Council of Australia's submission to the committee also noted that 'the model for administration of the schemes is appropriate but will be inherently complex and costly to administer and comply with'. Only a Labor government, and certainly only an Albanese Labor government, could have a bill named Future Made in Australia and actually make that future even harder for Australians and for Australian businesses. There is no surprise here. The Labor government specialty, which is to provide unnecessary complex red tape and economically destructive policies, is writ large here with this government, and that is the case here with this bill that we are debating here today.

Western Australian people must be thinking that this Albanese Labor government has a bone to pick with them. Whether it is their on-again off-again nature positive legislation or this deceitfully named Future Made in Australia Bill, it seems that the only requirements for bills to be tabled here in this place are that those bills that are going to constrain Western Australians, their businesses and the jobs they are employed in. The Albanese government's very own 2024 report showed that 81 major resource projects in the resources sector are now stalled or at risk. Eighty-one major projects valued at over $119 billion are currently stalled. This is the cost that Australians bear because of this government.

Maybe if you are in the inner city here on the east coast, you might not think much about the mining industry as you go about your daily lives. But let me tell you, it is feeding the nation. These projects are providing the prosperity of this nation. They are actually enabling our roads to be funded. They are enabling our hospitals to be funded. They are enabling our important safety net of the social services system to be funded, the NDIS to be funded, Medicare to be funded. If you take those projects out, if you destroy the resources industry, you can't achieve any of those things. We cannot see the prosperity of this nation continue in the way that it has over many decades when it is declining, sadly, at this point because of the poor judgement of this government.

I recently heard from companies based in Western Australia that want to produce hydrogen, who pointed out to me that this legislation does not even include provisions for clean hydrogen production that utilises carbon as part of the process—that is to say, a hybrid model of production of hydrogen, where you would use carbon sequestration. It doesn't allow for that. It doesn't allow for blue hydrogen, as it is commonly called. They only want the green type of hydrogen. But if we are going to create a market, there is debate as to whether this can even be done, whether green hydrogen is even viable. There are many projects across the world that are actually falling over. Queensland has just didn't announced that the project up in Gladstone is not going to be able to go ahead. We have not seen any progress on any large-scale production of hydrogen. There are a few pilot projects around the place using fully renewables to supply an electrolyser, but we are not seeing anything at a large scale that is going to meet the objectives of this bill. It is in the pipeline—maybe. But one way, if you do believe that that is even possible, that you could ensure a future market would be to establish the supply chains from production all the way through to delivering the product to the markets and actually utilise existing production capacity through steam reformation to create hydrogen, and sequester the carbon that is pulled out as part of processing the natural gas—use carbon capture and storage—as a way to hold the carbon and store it securely. You would then, as part of that, develop the market that would actually take that product for, one day, maybe, a green product to be able to follow through. But that's many, many years away, and meanwhile pink hydrogen—plugging an electrolyser into a nuclear power plant where the demand actually is—might be the easier way for Korea, Japan and other places to go ahead and have their hydrogen delivered to them. This bill does not even meet those objectives. It doesn't even allow for those hybrid projects to be able to occur.

Favouring only one production pathway, rather than aligning with the least carbon-intensive product, this bill again keeps Australia on the back foot in the race against international competitors in the industry. This means that green hydrogen projects which utilise, as I said, steam formation and reformation technology, for example, would be exempt from the incentives of this bill. Unnecessarily disadvantaging projects like these, which have the capacity to contribute greatly to our emissions reductions target in the near future, is nothing short of counterproductive.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia's submission to the committee on this bill reaffirmed this, stating that support for a range of hydrogen production technologies is essential for global market expansion. Another submission, from the Business Council of Australia, reaffirms that this bill risks 'increasing costs, duplicating other policies already in place, and offsetting competitive gains,' leaving Australia 'now less attractive as a destination for investment' than it could be. Project delays, increased costs and shallow policies are what have characterised the legislation that we have seen produced by this government.

While this bill might seem to some to be a step in the right direction, it fails to position our nation as a key frontrunner on the international stage, despite our abundance of natural resources. This so-called Future Made in Australia bill does little to create economic growth. Australia needs an economic plan and strong stewardship of the economy, not slogans. Simply slapping on top of a bill a title that misdirects as to the actual intention or effect of the bill is not the way to lead the economy. It needs to be more flexible. We need an economy that's more flexible and adaptable. We need an adaptable industrial relations framework, not one that benefits the trade union movement, as has occurred under this government's watch. Australia has experienced its slowest economic growth in 32 years under this government, which has presided over elevated interest rates and a cost-of-living crisis.

As I said, contrary to the name of the bill, this piece of legislation acts as a ball and chain to the Australian resources sector, an industry that continues to be plagued by this government's regulatory impositions and microwavable money-grab policies. Despite numerous submissions from leading voices in the industry, the government presents this half-baked policy in this place on the eve of an election. When will this government deliver legislation that can provide anything more than a headline with a dollar sign? WA, unfortunately, is going to lose yet again under this policy from this government.

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a load of tosh from Senator O'Sullivan! This bill, the Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024, is a bill that delivers benefits to Western Australia and Queensland; it is a bill that is supported by the resources industry in Western Australia; and it's a bill that is well designed to improve investment in processing and refining in Australia, adding value to the Australian economy.

Our opponents on this bill have talked around the detail of it and they've talked around the benefits that it brings to Australia, but particularly to Western Australia and particularly to Queensland—and that's understandable, because the details of this bill reveal its merits. The details of the bill reveal its benefits to not only the industry but also the broader community and Australian workers. That's why it is supported by the industry. That's why this government has put this bill forward.

Let me take you through the details very briefly, because it's not as amorphous as they would suggest. The critical minerals production tax incentive in this bill offers a 10 per cent refundable tax credit. It is for specific processing and refining costs. It's for up to 10 years per project for designated critical minerals between the financial years 2027-28 and 2039-40. It supports economic growth and prosperity. It encourages the future of Australian industry. It advances our strategic goals by bringing aspects of our supply chain onshore. It takes advantage of the expertise in the Western Australian and Queensland resources industries. And I do agree with Senator O'Sullivan: those industries are world-class and they are very important to the future of Australia. That is why the government is supporting them. Processing and refining our critical minerals onshore, rather than just exporting raw materials, offers a chance to create more Australian jobs, drive economic growth and support the energy transition.

What are the economic advantages? By incentivising local processing, we're encouraging not only investment in the processing and refining steps of the supply chain but also the competitiveness of Australian mining operations and investment in innovation and technology in this space. The estimate of the value of this incentive to drive critical minerals processing is that it will add up to $17 billion to the Australian economy up to financial year 2039-40. That is to say, these are processes that we're bringing onshore and that Australians will get the direct economic benefit from.

Building sovereign capability in critical minerals processing and refining will create secure, well-paying jobs in the resources sector—and that's something this government is entirely committed to. People in Western Australia and in Queensland should understand that this bill is about driving jobs in our great states. Critical minerals are vital components in solar panels, storage batteries and wind turbines, and the world can't transition to net zero without them. They also play a vital role in defence technology. So this helps our export industry. By building and securing domestic capacity in critical minerals and by value-adding in the supply chain, we can mitigate risks associated with supply chain disruptions while providing the Australian economy—and, most importantly, the Australian people—with economic benefits.

These tax credits have widespread industry support. The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies, the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia, the Minerals Council of Australia and Wesfarmers, among others, have all supported these tax credits. I'll say just briefly, though, because it was referred to, that Ross Lyons, the General Manager of Taxation at the Minerals Council of Australia, has said:

The MCA supports the critical minerals production tax incentive because it is a positive step towards attracting investment in the critical minerals industry.

…   …   …

We support the bill because the bill is going to help to reduce the cost of production for people that develop facilities downstream—

develop processing and refining capacity in Australia.

This is a bill that is supported by industry. It brings real community benefits. The only people who seem to be opposed to it are those opposite. But that's probably to be expected. Short-sighted, negative, unreliable—that's the Liberals under Peter Dutton.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024 is a perfect example of the garbage legislation a One Nation government would abolish. For 30 years, Australia has been held hostage to the green climate scam/climate fraud. With this legislation, the boondoggles continue—this time with a hint of desperation.

The bill has three schedules. The first introduces a hydrogen production tax credit of $2 a kilogram of hydrogen. This is supposedly to encourage the production of hydrogen for use in processes that contribute to the meeting of net zero targets. There it is again, raising its ugly head: net zero targets. There is a reason that green hydrogen is going up in flames faster than the Hindenburg. If hydrogen was commercially viable there would be a queue of companies producing and using hydrogen, but there aren't. There would be a queue of bankers lending for new hydrogen production. That isn't happening either. In fact, the reverse is true: companies and banks are pulling out. One Nation has a different strategy to encourage production. It's called the profit motive.

Eighteen months ago Canadian gas giant ATCO scrapped plans for one of the first commercial-scale green hydrogen projects in Australia, despite strong funding support from the government. Why? Because the numbers did not add up. In a sign of the times, Shell withdrew from a project to convert the Port Kembla steelworks into a hydrogen powered green steel project in 2022. Only last week BlueScope announced a $1.15 billion upgrade to the same Port Kembla plant to produce steel for another 20 years, using coal. The Hydrogen Park project in Gladstone, in my home state, was suspended after the Queensland government and the private partner withdrew. Despite the hype, this project would have only produced enough hydrogen to power 19 cars, while employing a handful of people. On the other hand, the Port of Gladstone's container-handling development, a real project, which One Nation has championed for years and which will be starting construction shortly, will bring thousands of jobs to Gladstone, with $8 billion of private sector investment—real breadwinner jobs, real future productive capacity.

Now, there have been some promising developments in hydrogen powered cars, mostly from Japanese makers. With zero tailpipe emissions, a longer range and faster refuelling, they contrast with the high cost and impracticality of EVs, electric vehicles, to achieve the same outcome. But the Japanese are trialling these on the basis that they may be legislated. The Japanese are covering their options. It should be noted that this research is being conducted in the private sector, acting out of a profit motive. Nothing our government has done will develop this technology. Consider Honda, for example. It is a disciplined, respected car maker—one of the leaders in the world—with an amazing culture. It is a leader in hydrogen. It's marking time. It has hydrogen powered vehicles on the road, but it's using it's shareholder money to support them, prudently, just in case they're legislated.

There's nothing in the hydrogen schedule of this bill that will provide Australian taxpayers with value for money—nothing—and it's a bloody lot of money: $6.7 billion over 10 years. I can just see Chris Bowen and Mr Anthony Albanese tossing out another few billion, $6.7 billion, to add to their trillions that will be invested eventually in this net zero madness. One Nation opposes schedule 1 of the bill, and if the bill is passed it will be repealed when One Nation repeals all of the green climate-scam legislation.

Let's move to schedule 2. Schedule 2 of the bill creates production tax incentives for transforming critical materials into a purer or more refined form. The materials in question are those that are used in wind, solar and batteries, used to firm unreliable, unaffordable, weather-dependent power—more money being thrown down the sewer. This section of the bill is directed at an industry that already receives government support through other schemes, including the Critical Minerals Facility, which offers loans, bonds, equity guarantees and insurance; the National Reconstruction Fund, which offers concessional loans, equity and guarantees; the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, which offers concessional loans, equity and letters of guarantee; and the Critical Minerals Research and Development Hub, which offers in-kind support via free research and development—not free to the taxpayers funding it, but free to the company—which is separate to the normal research and development tax incentives from the Australian Taxation Office. We're tossing money at these people, and it's wasted. How much assistance does one industry need? How much, government? After all this assistance, who gets to keep the profits generated from all this taxpayer largesse? The processors do. The critical minerals proposal in schedule 2 will cost $7 billion over 11 years—another $7 billion. 'What's a billion here or there?' says the government.

The Albanese government is socialising the costs and privatising the profits. We pay for their development and the costs, and the companies take the profits. Worse, there's no requirement that the recipients are Australian owned. What are you doing with people's money? What would actually help critical minerals in Australia is One Nation's proposal for a northern railway crossing from Port Hedland in the west to Moranbah in Queensland to open up the whole Top End and provide stranded assets like critical minerals with access to manufacturing and export hubs.

Let's move on to the third schedule, the final schedule. It's even worse. The bill changes the rules in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act to allow Aboriginal communities wider borrowing powers. The new rules are not specified. Those will come later from the minister. Not only is this a failure of transparency, it creates a second round of debate when the rules are released. It creates more uncertainty. Rules written under proposed legislation should be included with the legislation so the Senate knows exactly what it is voting on and how the powers will be used. But we don't, and yet you're going to vote on this. Without those rules, One Nation cannot support this schedule either.

In One Nation, we support the people. The Liberal-Labor-Greens, though, have decades of serving masters outside the party—globalist, elitist, parasitic billionaires, foreign corporations, non-government organisations, the United Nations and the World Economic Forum alliance. The Senate is open to conclude, given the location of this provision within a bill about injecting money into the net zero scam, that net zero is the destination for this extra borrowing—financing Aboriginal corporations to create their own government subsidised businesses and doing things private enterprise won't touch.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy, otherwise known as 'Minister for Blackouts', Chris Bowen, member of parliament, is behaving like an addicted, compulsive gambler who has done all of his own money and is now dragging his friends into his black hole. If this bill is passed, the Aboriginal community will be shackled with debt for pointless financial boondoggles that have no chance of commercial success—none. If this is not the intention, then the minister must table the rules. Let's see what the government does intend.

The net zero transition is destroying Australia and doing nothing for the natural environment. It is hurting the natural environment. The public are turning against the whole scam now that they realise the cost benefit is not there. It's costing them money and needless suffering. Business is turning against net zero because its carrying the full cost of soaring power prices and extra green tape. It's now coming out in the papers—the mouthpiece media. Minister, give it up, turn on the coal- and gas-fired power stations and save Australia from more suffering.

I'm now going to raise some additional points, related points, explaining what underpins the hydrogen scam and climate fraud. The Senate seems to be populated, mostly, with feeble-minded, gutless senators. Never has any empirical scientific data been presented as evidence, within logical scientific points, proving that carbon dioxide from human activity does what the United Nations and World Economic Forum and elitist, fraudulent billionaires claim—never, anywhere on earth. Or do such uninformed, gullible proponents in parliament have conflicts of interest? For example, the teals and possibly the Greens, it seems, receive funds from Climate 200, which spreads money from billionaire Simon Holmes a Court, who rakes in subsidies for solar and wind. Are the teals, including Senator Pocock, and the Greens gullible, or are they knowingly conflicted and pushing this scam? Only One Nation opposes the climate fraud and the net zero scam. One Nation will pull Australia out of the United Nations World Economic Forum's net zero target. One Nation has a plan to put more money into Australian pockets, giving you choice on how you spend your money rather than letting these people here waste it for you with the needlessly high cost of living.

Why do electricity bills keep skyrocketing when we switch to LED lights and star appliances, and when we get power from huge solar and wind generators? The people have been conned by the energy relief fund, which has suppressed what they see in their electricity bills. When that fund comes off soon, you're going to be in for a nightmare, a shock. Only One Nation has the policies to put more money into people's pockets now. For some insight from overseas, President Trump says it so well in his 20 January executive order:

The United States must grow its economy and maintain jobs for its citizens while playing a leadership role in global efforts to protect the environment. Over decades, with the help of sensible policies that do not encumber private-sector activity, the United States has simultaneously grown its economy, raised worker wages, increased energy production, reduced air and water pollution …

That's exactly what we've been saying for years, for decades in fact, in One Nation. And that's exactly the opposite of what the Greens, the teals, the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Nationals are pushing with net zero.

I have one final point. I remember Scott Morrison as prime minister at the time, a few years ago, introducing some green hydrogen scheme incentive, with more subsidies from taxpayers to foreign, predatory billionaires. He said at the time that a price of $2 per kilogram for hydrogen would be fine. We worked out that the price of electricity at that price for hydrogen is $200 per megawatt hour, which is exorbitant. It's almost 10 times what the fuel costs are for coal. What he didn't tell you at the time, and what Labor has blindly followed, was that the actual price of hydrogen was $6 per kilo. Pipedreams are now becoming nightmares for people across Australia.

Only One Nation opposes the climate fraud and the net zero scam. Only One Nation will pull Australia out of the United Nations World Economic Forum's net zero target. We are importing ideology from the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, and we are importing poverty and deprivation. One Nation, though, has a plan to put more money into Australians' pockets, to give you choice on how you spend your money.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I look forward to making some comments in relation to the Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024. In doing so, I think it would be remiss not to reflect on the fact that the government has had three years in power and they have no policies for growth, other than policies which propose to enact a centralised system of government handouts to businesses that are already doing the business themselves. When you think about the best way for us to manage this economy going forward, of course it is going to be for the market itself to fund and develop its own ideas.

The last time I looked, we weren't living in soviet Russia and we weren't living in an autocracy. In fact, up until recently, we had had almost three decades worth of growth because of fidelity to economic and market principles. But now we have a government which has done nothing other than run the country in favour of vested interests for three years. They have gummed up the works of small business with their endless ideological crusade created by the unions and foisted on the Australian people and small business by the Labor Party, which has led to it being harder than ever to run a small business in this country. The regulatory burden, the lack of imagination on the tax front and then the skyrocketing energy prices all mean that the country has anaemic growth and still has comparatively high inflation.

Then we come to this monster of a $22 billion handout to big business called Future Made in Australia. It is to the country's credit that we have institutions which are independent of the government of the day, where the people who are running those are able to give their own frank and fearless advice to ministers and to the public at large. The Chair of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, appointed by Mr Chalmers, said in relation to Future Made in Australia:

We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on government subsidies and that can be very effective in coming back for more.

In other words, the government is creating a cavalcade of lobbyists coming to Canberra with their hand out to take taxpayer funds to pump into businesses which may be uncompetitive or to prop up something that they were going to do anyway. That is Future Made in Australia. I don't think I can do any better a job than quoting the Chair of the Productivity Commission, the government's own adviser on economic and productivity matters. Then, of course, we look at the former head of the Productivity Commission, Gary Banks, who said that Future Made in Australia was a 'fool's errand.' Mr Banks went on to say that it risks repeating that the mistakes of the past are propping up political favourites.

I think it is extraordinary, when you think about the history of this issue and, frankly, the great work that was done by the Hawke government in tearing down the tariff wall and ending the subsidisation of Australian industry, which was very hard to do. All the insiders and all the political dorks will give their opinions about who supported what in the eighties and nineties and how much bipartisanship there was, but there was bipartisanship in the eighties on the idea of reducing the tariff wall and ending subsidisation because it was recognised by people with brains that there were some things that Australia wasn't good at doing. There were some things that we were never going to be able to compete on, and, therefore, the government should not step into the shoes of industry and try to run these businesses for them and prop them up with taxpayers' hard earned money. That debate was won. What was the dividend? It was 30 years of growth.

So here we are seeing the government engaging in trampling upon the Hawke legacy. Maybe it is amnesia. My understanding was that the Treasurer had done a doctorate on Paul Keating. If he can still remember that doctorate, he will know that the Treasurer in the Hawke government was Paul Keating. Keating was, of course, an advocate for this approach because he understood the danger of maintaining the settlement which sustained, through government subsidy, uncompetitive businesses. That risked our prosperity then, and this risks our prosperity now by creating a class of businesses which are totally reliant on Canberra's teat. That is the risk with this scheme. I think that is why productivity commissioners past, present and maybe in the future—I don't know—have all taken the view that this is very bad. I commend Ms Wood for being brave enough to exercise her independence in that role and to criticise the Future Made in Australia policy.

There are a few examples in the current marketplace. Programs like Solar Sunshot, which apparently has not been supported by the Treasury secretary, has not proven its worth. Furthermore, Fortescue, which is proposing to engage in some green hydrogen initiatives, has decided that it will cut back what it was proposing to do even though this policy has been announced. That is the overall charge against this policy.

In Labor's agenda here, one thing that is never far from the surface is a desire to lock in some dollars for their good friends in the trade union movement. They have done this, on this occasion, through the community benefit principles. These were the subject of the Senate economics committee's review of not just the principal legislation but also the legislation that the Senate is now considering in relation to tax credits. The AMWU provided evidence to the initial Senate inquiry, and in relation to the community benefit principles they said:

We at the AMWU want well-paid, safe, secure jobs, and that's why the jobs from this should have union agreements; they should be unionised.

That was their opinion, and that is exactly what this government is delivering in the form of the community benefit principles. They are proposing that, if there are to be contracts issued under the Future Made in Australia arrangements, they must have union agreements. This is going to be a very ugly moment for the country because, if this is passed by this parliament and a future made in Australia becomes law, then the agreements to give away taxpayer funds to uncompetitive businesses will have, as a condition, a requirement to have a union agreement which saps productivity and ultimately sees what we've been able to have exposed by the Nine newspapers through their building inquiries.

The construction industry has a 20 or 30 per cent tax on it imposed by the CFMEU. The productivity drain is there because the union is doing business for itself, not the public interest, and that has certainly had a massive effect on the cost of apartment construction around Australia. What you will see is the CFMEU tax effect applied wherever you see 'Future Made in Australia' appear. It could be anywhere, in any business. Then you'll start to see the Argentinian disease. You'll start to see vested interests infect and entrap the country's economy through this locking in of largesse and vested interests, where they have their grubby mitts in every single transaction. Who's paying? It's the taxpayer. The taxpayer would have to pay for this. In the end, the taxpayer would end up paying for the largesse locked into the legislation.

I thought the Minerals Council made a very interesting comment when they came to the secondary inquiry. They made the point that, at the end of the day, they're already meeting a lot of the standards that you see in the legislation and that there'd be duplication through the community benefit principles. I thought there was also some interesting testimony from the Clean Energy Council. Ms Anna Freeman made the following point:

We also remain concerned about the potential duplication of process created by the community benefit principles.

This is the Clean Energy Council; they have the same view as the Minerals Council and the Business Council. All the business groups have a concern about these community benefit principles. Some of them, fairly, have a concern that they are woolly; others share my concern, which is that you're going to see a CFMEU-isation of the broader economy and the locking in of this largesse.

As I said at the opening, none of this should be surprising. The major problem the Australian people have is that they have had a government for three years which has spent its time lining the pockets of its blood-sucking mates in the unions, the super funds and the class-action law firms. They haven't had time to solve the real economic problems facing the Australian people, which is why they've failed on inflation and housing. They are a government for vested interests. When they get out of bed every day, they think about the 10 things they can do for the people who run their preselections, fund their campaigns, talk to them every day and write their policies. That is the problem the Australian people have. That is why we're not on track in this country, because when you run the country for the favour of a few bloodsuckers, you actually do run the show into the ground. That is where we are right now in this country.

The Future Made in Australia bill is wonderfully consistent with the past three years of this government's agenda. If you look at anything to do with industrial relations, superannuation or the broader economy, Future Made in Australia is more largesse for unions. But, as I said before, I would encourage Mr Chalmers or Dr Chalmers—whatever he calls himself—to have a read of his doctoral thesis on Mr Keating. In that, he will find that Mr Keating was the Treasurer in the Hawke government which pulled down the tariff wall and ended the subsidisation of Australian industry for the better. I would encourage him to read that. If he's able to rediscover the old dusty thesis, or whatever it was, he will learn a valuable lesson. This is the road to ruin. Not only will it pave the Barton and Federal highways with gold from all the lobbyists and bloodsuckers; it will also establish a massive sovereign risk here. Future ministers and bureaucrats are going to have to work out how to dish all this cash out—billions and millions of dollars every single year.

I think this is a bad idea, and I think if the government can set aside all the politics and reflect on what it has learnt in the past couple of years, it may have learnt that it's not a good idea to establish these big funds. Firstly, with the reconstruction fund, no-one knows what we're reconstructing from. That is sitting on tens of billions of dollars and hasn't done anything. Then we've got the housing fund, which spends more money on executive salaries than it does on housing. The government is building vastly fewer houses than were achieved under the past government. Bureaucracies do not build houses. Bureaucracies do not reconstruct from wars, or whatever we've had. I'm not sure why we're having a reconstruction. This will be the same thing.

I think that in the end they will regret this plan, because it is fraught with risk, and it fails to learn the lessons of Australia's recent history. Australia will grow if there is a fair dinkum approach to supporting businesses that can stand on their own two feet. Small business, medium business, big business—who cares?—will prosper with clearer taxes, lower taxes and fewer regulations. That is going to be the path to prosperity. The idea of subsidising bad ideas and bad businesses with taxpayer funds and simultaneously allowing them to be funnelled away to the unions, the CFMEU and all the other old mates, is the road to ruin. It is a road to turning Australia into Argentina. That is why we are voting against these bills. I say, for the record, that I think Argentinians are wonderful people.

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

I rise to speak on the government's bill to provide Future Made in Australia production tax credits. Only the Liberals could oppose this bill. Production tax credits will be a critical enabler for Australia's renewable hydrogen future and our critical minerals processing sectors.

The Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024 will directly support the government's work to accelerate investment in the net zero transition, and it will build economic resilience and security in our country. Renewable hydrogen will be absolutely critical for the production of green metals and the future of manufacturing in this country. While Australia does do a great job of digging and shipping our significant minerals reserves, there are a lot of value-adding and downstream processing opportunities to take advantage of. That's what we want to do, and that's what we will do with this bill. Importantly, these production tax credits will reward production. There are no blank cheques in this bill. There are no complicated guidelines or risks to investment certainty. This bill is simple and it's efficient, and the production tax credits will be applied at tax time.

This government is focused on a future made in Australia, a future of making more things in our own backyard right here, on our own shores. It's hard to think why anybody in this chamber wouldn't support that. But the Liberal Party don't. Those opposite have decided to stand against Australian jobs once again. They have decided to stand alone and oppose this bill. They oppose this critical support for Australian industries. They oppose the jobs and the industry across regional Australia that will be supported by this bill. They are saying no to more jobs in Western Australia, no to more jobs in Queensland, and no to jobs in areas like Gippsland in my home state of Victoria. The Liberals, right here today, are choosing to oppose new industries and new job opportunities for Australians, just as they always have.

We all remember when they drove Australia's car industry off a cliff. We remember when they cost working class suburbs across our country tens of thousands of jobs in production and in the supply chain. Labor, on the other hand, believe in good, secure jobs. We believe in our manufacturing industry in this country. We believe we can do more than dig and ship. We believe in a future made in Australia. We believe in onshoring jobs that we've lost to overseas. And the Liberals oppose jobs, oppose Australian manufacturing and oppose a future made in Australia.

The Senate Economics Legislation Committee, which I chair, was overwhelmed with support for these production tax credits. Indeed, the Minerals Council of Australia told us, 'We support this bill,' because the bill is going to help to reduce the cost of production for people that develop facilities downstream. And witnesses to the hearing wanted the bill to pass ASAP. The Australian Hydrogen Council told us how keen their members are for this bill to pass, saying:

From our perspective and based on the things I've personally heard from members, the most important thing here is to get this bill passed and to get it done in a timely fashion.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia said—and I'm sure my Western Australian colleagues across the chamber will be interested in this:

The CME support the swift passage of the bill to implement the CMPTI and HPTI in order to support Australia's investment attractiveness in these strategic industries.

The Clean Energy Council labelled the production tax credits 'a no-regrets measure' and urged swift passage. Michele O'Neil, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, endorsed the bill, saying:

If we fail to pass this bill, we'll be foregoing to the opportunity to create, conservatively, hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions in domestic economic activity.

It really could not be any clearer. Everyone wants this bill to pass, except the Liberals.

What this government wants is a future made in Australia. What those opposite, the Liberals, want is a future made overseas. That is what they are coming into the chamber and voting for today. We are getting on with the job of delivering a future made in Australia, of building the jobs and opportunities of the future. As part of that future, it is important that the benefits are shared with the community. Ensuring that our communities feel the real benefits is what the community benefit principles in this bill are about.

The community benefit principles are six principles that recipients of Future Made in Australia support must have, including safe and secure jobs, positive outcomes for local communities, support of First Nations communities and traditional owners, strengthening of domestic industrial capabilities, and transparency and compliance in relation to the management of tax affairs. Who could oppose that? Who could oppose all of those community benefits? You guessed it—the Liberals. They are the ones in this chamber today opposing a future made in Australia and opposing safe and secure jobs and benefits to local communities. It is these community benefit principles that will ensure our Future Made in Australia agenda has a wider impact and delivers real opportunities for Australian industry, workers, First Nations and our community. This bill is industry building, it is job creating and it's proudly building a future made in Australia, and it must pass.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Anyone who is paying attention knows that we are in the midst of a climate emergency. Floods, fires and heatwaves are intensifying, and the window for action is closing fast. Right now in my home state of Victoria, huge fire fronts are being fought in the Grampians and in Little Desert. Firefighters, farmers and emergency services have been working around the clock in hot, unpredictable conditions. We also had a hot December. People might remember that it got to a whopping 47 degrees in the Mallee.

Rapid decarbonisation isn't a choice; it's a necessity. The Future Made in Australia (Production Tax Credits and Other Measures) Bill 2024 is a step towards this essential transition. This bill encourages investment in renewable hydrogen and critical minerals and expands the remit of Indigenous Business Australia. The Greens welcome government support for clean energy industries and support this bill's intent. Australia has the potential to become a renewable energy superpower. Schemes like the tax credits proposed in this bill are important for creating market confidence and encouraging the investment needed for us to live up to this potential. By supporting renewable hydrogen and the growth of critical minerals, this bill has the potential to boost our economy and create sustainable jobs. The Greens welcome steps towards the renewable transition and support efforts to help workers and communities on the way.

But let's be very clear: we cannot fight the fire while continuing to pour fuel on it. Every new coal and gas project that Labor approves takes us further away from a safe climate future. The biggest cause of global warming is the mining, transporting and burning of fossil fuels—that is, coal, oil and gas, as I'm sure everyone in here knows. Scientists agree that the phasing out of fossil fuels is the No. 1 task to halt our planet from cooking and that there can be no new coal or gas projects if we are to avoid climate collapse. But, instead of acting, Labor has green-lit over 30 new coal and gas projects since being elected in 2022. The Albanese government has also committed to a future for gas beyond 2050 in their future gas strategy—2050!—and continues to pour billions of taxpayer dollars into sustaining these polluting industries, including the widely condemned and dangerous Middle Arm precinct.

Rather than embracing a truly renewable future, Labor is locking in decades of pollution and accelerating the climate crisis. While Labor have their heads in the sand, the world is reeling from the climate emergency. Last year marked the hottest year on record and the first time ever that the earth's temperature topped 1.5 degrees of global warming, pushing the world further and further into climate catastrophe and away from our international agreements. Meanwhile, in my home state of Victoria, fires ravaged homes, communities and wildlife in the west, destroying precious flora and fauna in the Grampians and shutting down local tourism. At the same time, homes are being destroyed in Melbourne and Geelong by extreme winds and storms. All the while, people across the state are dealing with crippling heatwaves without proper insulation or air-conditioning in their rentals and homes. And, when disaster strikes, Australians aren't just left to pick up the pieces; they're paying the price for Labor's inaction.

Instead of protecting people from the worsening impacts of climate change, the Albanese government is fuelling the crisis, approving new coal and gas projects while leaving communities to face rising insurance costs, lost homes and financial ruin. Meanwhile, insurance premiums are skyrocketing, up to 400 per cent in some areas. In Halls Gap, business are finding themselves uninsurable due to risk.

Insurance companies are raking in profits and making it impossible for people to insure their homes. Climate risk, fuelled by coal and gas corporations, has broken our insurance system, and it's people in disaster-prone regions who are paying the price. Families already crushed by rising costs face an impossible choice: protect their homes or put food on the table. This is not just a crisis of affordability; it's a crisis of climate failure, and it is entirely preventable.

This crisis is personal for me. Growing up in regional Victoria and now living on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, the climate crisis directly threatens my communities, my family and my home. Each year the Labor and Liberals approve and support the expansion of new coal, the risk of rising sea levels, storm surges and fire grows. Meanwhile, fossil fuel giants rake in billions, fuelling disasters that break our insurance system. And what do our governments do? They reward polluters.

In the 2022-23 financial year alone, Australian federal and state governments handed out $14½ billion in fossil fuel subsidies, a 31 per cent increase from the previous year—$14½ billion in fossil fuel subsidies, $14½ billion in fuelling the climate crisis. This is money that could have gone to disaster relief, affordable insurance and climate adaptation. Instead, it's going straight to the pockets of coal and gas executives, who knowingly worsen the climate crisis.

Let's be clear. This isn't just a Labor problem; the Liberals spent nearly a decade in power dismantling climate policy and making Australia more vulnerable to climate disasters. They gutted funding for our climate resilience programs, ignored repeated warnings from experts and tried to block real action at every single turn. When Scott Morrison waved around a lump of coal in parliament, he was sending a message: the Liberals will always side with fossil fuel companies over the interests of Australian people.

The cost of this failure is real. In 2022, Australians claimed over $7 billion in home insurance, almost double the previous record, after floods devastated communities across the east coast. In response, insurance premiums jumped by 14 per cent nationwide, the biggest rise in a decade. In high risk areas, some families are being priced out of coverage altogether. What happens when their homes are destroyed? The government will come and say, 'We can't afford to help,' but they can afford to hand billions of dollars into big coal and gas corporations in the form of subsidies, and it is a disgrace.

Australians shouldn't have to bear the cost of a climate crisis they didn't create. It's time to make polluters pay. A levy on coal and gas companies could fund affordable insurance, disaster recovery and resilience projects that actually protect our communities. Because here's the reality: ending new coal and gas projects isn't just about cutting emissions; it's about our survival. It's about ensuring that, when disasters strike, people aren't left homeless, drowning in debt or forced to rebuild from nothing. Australia's future is in clean energy, not in fossil fuels. And a future made in Australia agenda done right is an opportunity to replace our coal and gas exports with green energy and products manufactured right here in Australia.

As I said, the Greens support the intent of this bill. It's an important measure to reduce barriers for green industries and set Australia up as a renewable energy superpower. But the Labor government needs to stop sending mixed signals. If the government really wants the critical minerals sector to succeed, it will stop backing new coal and gas projects, because they're going to be competing for the same workers and competing for investment as well as fast tracking climate collapse. Australians deserve better.

With more Greens in parliament, they can get better. Unlike Labor and the coalition, the Greens do not take dirty donations from industries like coal and gas. And we are not beholden to the vested interest of billionaires and corporations, and I think this is a theme that's going to run through many speeches this week as we see the massive donations that have been given by the coal and gas lobby, from the gambling industry and from a multitude of other multinational corporations that are funding the major parties, demonstrating to the Australian community their willingness to protect those vested interests over representing everyday Australians. That is why the Greens is the only political party to have a clear plan to phase out of coal and gas and stop fossil fuel subsidies. We know that any effort to reduce the burden of the climate crisis on people and communities is futile without real action to stop fossil fuel corporations. The Greens are proud to have secured significant amendments to the Future Made in Australia bills last year to ensure that no support will be provided to coal, oil and gas under the regime, and commercial investments and programs for Export Finance Australia.

Just imagine what we can do with more Greens elected to parliament. We could keep the coalition out of government and hold Labor to account for their broken promises, and for the nature positive laws that completely abandoned the environment in this term of parliament, once again, due to their vested interests. We could push them to actually take real action on climate change, or deliver on nature reforms they promised last election but today have gutlessly scrubbed from the legislative agenda. More Greens in parliament would mean more representatives who listen and vote based on the needs of the people, not profits. So Australia, if you are sick of voting for the same two parties and getting the same result, vote Greens at the next election, and help us to deliver meaningful action to protect our precious climate and precious biodiversity in this country.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, there you have it from the Greens: the statement of their principles—keep the coalition out of government so they can prop up the Labor Party and have the tail wagging the dog to enact the Greens' economy destroying policies. That is what we will see after the next election unless the Australian people understand the impact of this kind of approach on our economy and actually reflect on what this Labor-Greens alliance has done over the last 2½ years and the damage that it will wreak on the rest of the Australian economy if given the chance to govern in alliance once again.

I am going to start today, as I usually have to in these debates, sadly, not talking directly about the bill but by addressing some of the misinformation that comes out of the other side in their contributions, because there is some egregious rewriting of history going on over the other side. The first one I want to address is the idea that we hear over and over again—this insulting idea that Western Australian mining industry is just digging and shipping. 'Digging and shipping' is the phrase they use—you just get a shovel, put something on a boat and that's it. Port Hedland is one of the top-10 largest ports in the world. I would encourage all my colleagues to go and visit it. It is a logistical exercise that is an absolutely extraordinary achievement of people who had vision, people who were able to organise an extraordinary physical undertaking of moving that quantity of material in a 10-metre tidal zone, where you have less than a metre between the bottom of those boats and the channel through which they pass, less than two metres on either side. I have seen those boats because I've been to Port Hedland now a number of times. I would encourage all my colleagues to go and look to understand the extraordinary logistical exercise that encompasses Port Hedland port. If you drive through the Pilbara, down the highway from Broome, through Newman and past Mount Magnet, you will see the extraordinary undertakings of the mining industry right along that road in what is one of the most remote places on this planet. If you go to Perth and you go to some of the control facilities where remote mining equipment is being controlled from Perth with remotely operated machinery, robotic trucks, you will see high-paid, high-skilled jobs in the mining industry of Western Australia. So to characterise it as 'digging and shipping' is an insult to every single one of those West Australians involved in our great visionary and technologically sophisticated mining industry. We are world leaders. We are the best in the world at this industry, and that shouldn't be something that we take for granted. It shouldn't be something we dismiss with a glib three-word phrase. This is the engine room of the Western Australian and the Australian economy. There is no doubt about that.

The other piece of misinformation from the other side that I am going to correct, because I think it is important and does reflect on why we oppose this bill, is this nonsense that the coalition were responsible for the demise of the Australian car industry. The Button car plan was responsible for the demise of the Australian car industry. The Button car plan, the Labor Party car plan, of the 1980s entrenched in that industry the union inefficiency that eventually killed it. The Button car plan forced manufacturers to work together to share their technology. So, when you went out and bought a Holden Apollo, you were actually buying a Toyota Camry. They were exactly the same; they just had different badges on them. When you went out to buy a Holden Nova, it was a Toyota Corolla with a different badge on it. This was the Labor Party's car plan. If you went out and bought a Holden Commodore, it was a Toyota Lexcen. This was the Labor Party's car plan. They forced the companies to collude. They forced the companies to share bodies. They forced the companies to share engines. They forced the companies to share drive trains. They entrenched union presence in those plants, and that is what drove the Australian car industry into massive inefficiency, which meant that, in the end, it could not compete globally. It had no chance of competing globally and had no chance of procuring the financial resources needed to invest the capital needed to maintain its place in the world's supply chains.

The Labor Party was the death knell of the Australian car industry through overregulation, through overreliance on their mates in the union movement and through forcing companies to try and collude to share engines, to share drive trains and to share bodies. It was a centralised attempt at controlling the Australian economy that failed, because picking winners always fails. Control from the centre always fails over time. It might work for a little while, but, in the end, it fails, because governments cannot make the same judgements over time that markets do. They will make bad decisions. They will find an industry that happens to be in a marginal seat that they start supporting with the best of intentions, perhaps, but, in the end, they cannot withdraw support for that industry, because it will hurt them politically, and that's what you're setting up here. You're picking one particular part of the Australian economy to give this largesse to and to give these taxpayer funded tax breaks to—just one part of the economy. You're not saying to the whole economy: 'Come out. Come and get it. Here's your opportunity; show us the best and the brightest, and we will support that.' No. They're picking winners in the economy, and that is what has always failed throughout the economy history of the last two or three hundred years. One thing that you can bank on is that governments stepping in like this will create failures. It's sad that we see this continual return and continual retreading of this same ground, over and over again.

One of the things that was talked about when this idea was being ventilated, was being talked about, in this place, was how important it was because of what was happening in other countries—particularly in the United States, with the Inflation Reduction Act. Well, the new administration in the US has paused funding to, paused spending on, the Inflation Reduction Act. So, if that was one of the chief justifications, that's just been blown out of the water. That should never have been a justification anyway, because you are never going to make Australia's economy strong by chasing other economies down their rabbit holes. It's never going to work.

If we want the Australian economy to be strong, we've got to do those things that we know support businesses to invest and be the most productive they can be. And how do we do that? We do that through mechanisms to support broad-scale investment where the companies, the businesses—the small businesses, the medium businesses, the large businesses—have to make an investment decision in their own best interests, such as the instant asset write-off. That's a very important policy, and one that I certainly have championed from this side because it really does give support to those businesses who see an opportunity, no matter what they are—whether they're in an industry that this government decides it wants to pick as a winner, or whether they're a small cafe who wants to invest in a new, more efficient washing machine or cooking apparatus or billing system, or whether they're a small business who sees an opportunity in buying an extra ute to do deliveries with because maybe it's slightly larger, so it can take a little more, or it's slightly more fuel efficient. Things like this, and decisions made by individual businesses, will fuel the productivity improvements we'll need into the future.

Under this government, we have seen not just the extraordinary damage done to business by the ratcheting up of inflation, the ratcheting up of interest rates, the massive spike in the cost of living and the massive spike in the cost of doing business in this country. We have seen also a plummeting, a falling off the cliff, of Australian productivity. And that does need to be addressed. I absolutely admit that productivity is one of the key challenges for any government. But this bill isn't going to do it. In fact, through the mechanisms in this bill, we are actually going to see, quite frankly, potentially, things going in the opposite direction.

I have spoken before in this place about how this bill has its own Orwellian name, 'Future Made in Australia'. It's a name that sounds to me very much like it was developed by a focus group—and it will be very interesting if that ever comes to light! I suspect it was. But then, within that, we have these 'community benefits principles'—again, a very Orwellian phrase because it really means: What is Labor going to impose on those businesses? What boxes are those businesses going to have to tick to satisfy their Labor government masters to get this money? What does that mean in terms of this government satisfying the wishes of the union movement? It has done that from day one. From the day this government was elected, its main, driving, intellectual rationale has been: 'What does the union movement want, and how can we get it done?' So, once again, we are going to see those sorts of principles embedded in these Orwellianly-titled 'community benefit principles'. We don't know what they're going to look like, because they're going to be made up in regulation after the event. So we don't know what they're going to look like. The companies don't know what they're going to look like. And, quite frankly, it's just another layer of red tape that's being imposed on these businesses.

So, on the one hand, you've got this government putting in place new workplace relations laws, new environmental approvals, the safeguard mechanism, changes to company tax, and making things harder on business, and then, on the other, they're trying to give a handout to a very small part of the economy. But the fact is that what we should be doing is trying to help the whole economy. We should be trying to help all parts of business, particularly the small and medium businesses that are under so much pressure at the moment.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A Future Made in Australia is about maximising the opportunities of our goal of net zero for workers and businesses, and, very importantly, securing Australia's position in what is a changing global and strategic landscape. Our journey to net zero is the biggest opportunity in decades. However, a failure to act now—as many commentators important to these industries recognise—would jeopardise our economy and our livelihoods, and the lack of support from the coalition for this bill represents a real risk to our future.

The global path to net zero runs through the Australian resources sector and is indeed paved with Western Australia's critical minerals, because these resources are needed by the world—resources produced sustainably. We want to see smart, sensible approaches to cutting emissions. We want to create thousands of secure jobs in my home state of Western Australia. These minerals are needed for solar panels, storage batteries, wind turbines. The world cannot transition to net zero without them.

However, critical minerals are also needed for so many other industries. Perhaps it is the opposition's ideological crusade against renewables and net zero that is seeing them not support this legislation. However, even if that was your frame, these critical minerals are needed by Australia and the world. They're vital components in communications, advanced technology and defence applications. They are also directly relevant for the national security of Australia and its allies.

A lack of diversity in existing supply chains currently represents a very real risk to our security. Currently, we ship critical minerals overseas to be refined before they can be manufactured into solar panels, storage batteries, phones, computers, wind turbines and defence equipment. We have highly concentrated supply chains in the world. These undercut our sovereign capability and lead to jobs and investment leaving Australia. We are missing out on all the jobs that can and should be created by building processing facilities in Australia and operating these facilities here.

Building a booming critical minerals industry will boost Western Australia's economy and create secure jobs in the very important resources sector. We have an absolute abundance of projects ready to go in Western Australia that could get off the ground with the right support. There are more than 38 listed projects already in Western Australia. Coalition senators opposite are failing to represent these projects and Western Australia's ambitions to move up the supply chain with our exports. Western Australians know—although much of the rest of the country doesn't always recognise it—that we are the engine room of the Australian economy, but the nation cannot take this for granted. We must innovate and invest in the future of these industries in our state. If we do, we will turbocharge the resources sector and create jobs.

The Albanese government's last budget delivered the most significant initiatives for the future of Australia's resources in a generation, an agenda that is visionary. But those opposite have their heads in the sand. You offer a policy vacuum—a long list of noes. Peter Dutton said no to cost of living relief, no to higher wages, no to cheaper medicines and, in this case, no to an investment in more jobs in Western Australia. So let's be clear. Having production tax credits for critical minerals is a zero-risk approach for Australia.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pratt, unfortunately—I apologise—I must interrupt you.