Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the production tax credit scheme is quite simple. I'll explain it for those opposite. If companies don't produce a processed critical mineral, once again, they don't receive a tax credit. Taxpayers don't pay a cent—righto, got that?—unless the industry succeeds. If companies do produce a processed critical mineral, it means they have grown our sovereign capability, they have attracted investment, they have contributed to diversified supply chains, they have contributed to value adding onshore and, oh my goodness, they have created new jobs.

Let's be clear. By opposing this legislation, that mob over there, the coalition, are opposing investment, are opposing jobs and are turning their backs on Western Australia, which we've heard very clearly today. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the member for Durack especially wouldn't support this legislation, let alone Western Australian members and senators. Those of us on the Labor side of politics want more critical minerals processed here in Australia at facilities built by, God help us, Australian workers, and, oh my God, operated by Australian workers. It's pretty hard for that side over there to fathom, but I'm going to try and help you.

Don't just take my word for it. This legislation is supported by the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia, by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies in WA, by Wesfarmers and by the Minerals Council of Australia. It's not often that you will find me on the same side as some of those organisations, swapping Christmas cards! Contrast the approach being taken by Wesfarmers, who, for those Western Australian senators and members, are on the record saying this is a 'smart, targeted use of the tax system to solve big problems, leverage our competitive advantages and enhance Australia's prosperity'.

Imagine my surprise when I heard the shadow Treasurer, Mr Taylor, describe the production tax incentive as giving a dollar to every cafe owner for every coffee they produce. Colleagues, I'll tell you which policy gives a dollar to every cafe owner for every coffee they produce, and some of that could be the free lunch policy being promoted by that mob over that side. I'll tell you a little story. There's no such thing as a free lunch, so—do not be mistaken—that policy is a dud of a policy. How the heck do you expect workers to pay for the boss's long lunches? Rather than supporting new industries that are essential for our future, those opposite want to lurch back to the 1980s, when Australian workers and taxpayers used to foot the bill for their boss's long lunch. That's what they want to do. But I digress.

Producing lithium hydroxide, vanadium pentoxide or nickel sulphate is a bit more complex than producing a latte. Believe it or not, there are members opposite representing electorates in Western Australia that host critical mineral mines with ambitions to move up the value chain, including the member for O'Connor and the member for Durack. By not supporting this important legislation, they are casting doubt on the investment opportunities for critical minerals processing in my home state of Western Australia. Worse than that, they are turning their backs on jobs in their electorates.

Compare that to the WA opposition—don't laugh! There is a WA opposition. You've got to hear this. I normally have a lot of highly critical things to say about the rabble that is the Western Australian opposition. But, on this, they've seen the light when it comes to supporting our emerging critical minerals sector. Unlike the federal coalition, the WA Liberal and National parties—all seven of them—understand the importance of this Albanese government policy. In fact, the leader of the Liberal Party in WA—not the opposition but the Liberal Party—Libby Mettam, at this stage the leader, has gone as far as to say, 'We will support this measure.' Very good. Add to that Mr Shane Love, the WA opposition leader and leader of the WA Nationals. He has said, 'It is essential not just for Western Australia and not just for Australia but for the Western world.' Good on you, Mr Love! It seems that common sense, believe it or not, has spread to some of their federal candidates. Not members, no—there's no common sense there. Ms Mia Davies, the Nationals candidate for Bullwinkel, said, 'Downstream incentives are welcome.' Perhaps the shadow Treasurer should listen to his WA colleagues before shooting his mouth off.

The development of this bill is a great example of industry leaders and national and state governments working together to develop a new vital industry that will drive economic growth. I'm proud to be a member of a government that doesn't duck the hard challenges, that works with industry to build a dynamic future for Australia and Australian workers. Mining and critical minerals are an important part of that dynamic future. Put simply, mining matters, and it particularly matters for regional Australia—and, importantly, regional Western Australia. The development of our critical minerals mining and processing industries is vitally important to national economic resilience and our national security.

But, rather than support these important initiatives, those opposite, the Liberals and the Nationals, just want to focus on division and conflict. Why those opposite can't see that the passage of this bill will deliver for Australia, Australian industry and regional Australia is completely beyond me. Australia will be much stronger, our regional economy will be more prosperous, and there will be good, well-paying jobs in our regional communities and our outer suburbs. Along with all my Labor colleagues on this side of the chamber, I'm proud that the government is investing in regional jobs. I'm proud that the government is backing the expansion of a world-leading Australian industry. I'm proud that the government is striving to create a new and lasting comparative advantage for Australia, for Australian industry and for Australians.

Tax credits, production credits and other forms of support for investment and innovation will ensure that our mining products will be converted from refined metal into manufactured goods right here in Australia. Could we imagine that? Is it that hard? For that lot over there, please help me out. What is negative about that? We talk about the good old days. Let's start bringing them back. Why are they opposed to these high-skilled, well-paying jobs in regional Australia? I admit, the government's vision for our critical minerals sector is ambitious, but what's wrong with that? You don't develop world-leading industries by following. Our ambitions for Australia and Australian industry are matched by the scale of the national opportunity these important policy initiatives will create. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer, the Albanese government is determined that Australian industry will be in a position where it will be competitive. We want to create the economic environment where the world's best manufacturers will again look to investing in Australia.

Let's recap. Australians have a wealth of critical minerals and rare earths right under their feet. It would be a travesty not to capitalise on these resources to build Australia's future and create thousands of secure jobs, particularly in Western Australia. Critical minerals are needed for solar panels, storage batteries and wind turbines, and the world can't transition to net zero without them. The global path to net zero runs through the Australian resources sector and is paved with Western Australia's critical minerals. These minerals are also vital components in defence applications and directly relevant for the national security of Australia and our allies. But, at the moment, we ship critical minerals overseas to be refined before they can be manufactured into solar panels, storage batteries, wind turbines and defence equipment. This has led to concentrated supply chains, the undercutting of our sovereign capability, and jobs and investment leaving Australia. Listen to that mob over there, it seems they're happy to see that happen.

Australia is missing out on all the jobs that will be created by building processing facilities here in Australia, on our shores, and operating processing facilities in Australia crewed by Australian workers. Building a booming critical minerals industry in Australia will boost Western Australia's economy and create secure jobs in our resources sector. There is an abundance of projects in Western Australia that can get off the ground with the right support. The government's yearly critical minerals prospectus alone lists 27 critical minerals projects in my home state of Western Australia, with 19, as I said earlier, within the electorate of Durack.

An incident having occurred in the chamber—

Sorry about that. That was my sister calling. Whoops! As I said, let's not forget that we will all prosper when we draw on our nation's resources. I'm talking about not just what is under the soil and the seabed but also the skills and the smarts of our Aussie workers—the brilliance of our Aussie researchers and our Aussie innovators. I urge those opposite to grab the other half of the brain that's missing, jump on board and support this magnificent legislation that will create magnificent opportunities for Aussies. Stop talking that rubbish about how great Trump is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) 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. It is no surprise that the coalition will be opposing this bill. Australia finds itself in a position of absolute bloated bureaucracy. The Albanese government seem to have done everything they can to increase the size of this leviathan. There is excess duplication and regulation that is holding us back from our economic potential. We know that the Labor government's increase to bureaucracy has impacted the high inflation that we are seeing—an additional 20 per cent increase in public servants and then 11 per cent pay rises on top of that. The RBA has admitted that the growth of the public sector is a factor that the RBA will have to take into account when considering rate cuts. It's clear that the Albanese Labor government loves bureaucracy and waste. It's everywhere you look. Their Future Made in Australia legislation is only going to make the problem worse.

We need to be encouraging and supporting the development and growth of businesses across the country. During the emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, the coalition acted, as we had to, and provided all-important relief to Australians. We ensured that business could continue to operate and everyday Aussies could keep their jobs.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Nampijinpa Price. Pursuant to order agreed to earlier, it being 11 am debate on this bill is interrupted.