Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In the middle of a climate crisis, the government brings the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment (Extension and Other Measures) Bill 2021 to this parliament to take public money which could be going to schools and hospitals, instead using it for coal and gas.

We're in a climate emergency. Around the world and here in Australia, people are in rebellion against the billionaires and the big corporations who are pulling the strings of governments and politicians. This week in my electorate of Melbourne citizens have come together for a week of action and civil disobedience, disrupting business as usual in defence of a safe climate. I want to say very clearly for the historical record that these people are heroes. They're refusing to be bystanders. They're refusing to accept the failure of our governments and our leaders, and they're not going to stop until they see real action to fix the climate crisis. So I extend my solidarity to Extinction Rebellion and, on behalf of the Australian Greens, the solidarity of us all. Together, everyone across Australia—from the people taking direct action now to the student strikers and the people at home, worried about the future—will continue the struggle and, together, we will win.

There is no greater threat to northern Australia than the climate crisis. This should be a major factor in our consideration of this bill. That's because this bill seeks to extend the time frame and the remit of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility—the NAIF. It will allow it to operate for another five years, insert a departmental officer onto the NAIF Board, remove the requirement to gain the support of the host state or territory for future projects supported by the NAIF, and expand the funding mechanisms to include equity investments and acquisitions of derivatives.

These amendments are promoted by the government as providing flexibility to deliver for the NT and northern Australia, but their aim is clear: the government wants to deliver for its mates. Minister Pitt has not even tried to hide his desire to use the facility as a slush fund for the gas industry. He has boasted about the amendments opening up more opportunities for Beetaloo infrastructure financing. It's a dirty energy fund that is yet another fossil fuel subsidy, on top of the fossil fuel subsidies that this government hands out to coal, gas and the dirty energy sector. Minister Pitt has boasted that the amendments will allow the Commonwealth to bypass the states on certain projects. I remind the parliament that the ability of state governments to veto investment decisions in fossil fuels was key to this slush fund not being used to prop up the economically irresponsible climate bond that is the Adani Carmichael mine.

The Greens will be proposing amendments to the bill in the Senate to restrain the excesses enabled by the NAIF and ensure that all investments have an eye to a sustainable future for northern Australia. The Greens have long argued that the NAIF must consider the Australian government's commitment to the temperature goals in the Paris Agreement, where we have agreed to commit to limit global warming to well below two degrees and to continue to work towards limiting it to 1½ degrees. But our current domestic pledges from this government—these targets that the minister boasts about meeting and beating—come nowhere close to what science shows is needed to meet the temperature goals under the Paris Agreement. But, without question, to have any chance of avoiding us going over the climate cliff and avoiding the climate crisis becoming a runaway chain reaction that we can't control, we cannot finance new fossil fuel infrastructure. That should be a baseline.

The discussion we should be having in this place is about how to phase out coal and gas, not how to take money that should be going to schools and hospitals and use it to build more coal and gas infrastructure. But that's what this government is trying to do. The Morrison government wants to use the NAIF to fund gas pipelines which will help gas companies who want to open up new gas fields. They want to use public funds to throw more fuel on the climate crisis. NAIF should be required to assess the environmental and climate impact of any project as part of assessing whether it is suitable for investment. It must also consider the environmental record of the people in charge of those projects.

One of the things this bill wants to do is open up the NAIF for equity investments in fossil fuels. In other words, because the market and the private sector are saying, 'No-one in their right mind is going to build new coal and gas projects,' the government comes along and says, 'Let's use public money to help you out, and we might even take an ownership stake in your company to give you a help-out because we know that the private sector can't do it on its own.' This is because parts of the private sector are starting to understand the gravity of the climate crisis. They understand that the fuel from renewables is free, but dirty coal and gas not only are polluting but are more expensive, which is why many of these projects aren't going to get off the ground unless the government takes public money that could be going to schools and hospitals and gives it to big gas corporations—the big gas corporations that pay zero tax, that have over $50 billion in revenue between them but pay zero dollars tax. Instead of saying, 'Maybe the gas corporations should pay more tax,' the government says, 'How can we give you even more handouts and give you some public money, instead of asking you to pay your fair share of tax?' It wants to potentially have the public on the hook for owning some of this infrastructure that is going to make the climate crisis worse. This will mean the public ends up exposed to risk for these stranded assets and exposed to risk as, hopefully, a future government, once we've kicked this terrible government out, starts to take action on the climate crisis. This government is putting the public on the hook for future risk if we get serious about tackling the climate crisis. An acquisition of derivatives can leave the government with an open-ended, unquantifiable liability, if a project proponent becomes insolvent, so they're putting you on the hook not just for equities sake but for derivatives down the line as well.

I note that there are some worthwhile projects, including those championed by First Nations organisations, that could benefit from some broader investment opportunities. But these types of speculative investments could be used, as the government wants to propose, to underwrite gas supply and prop up otherwise stranded assets. Given the NAIF's poor governance practices and processes for assessing risk on public lending, especially risks related to fossil fuels and climate change, this is an unacceptable risk. Tighter rules around eligibility for equity investment options introduced by the bill are essential to ensure the government isn't left carrying the can for unsustainable fossil fuel projects.

For a bill with 'Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility' in the title, it's pretty astounding that the bill proposes to remove the mandatory requirement for infrastructure to stimulate population growth in northern Australia, which was the key motivation for the NAIF in the first place. Removing this requirement will make it easier for the minister to push NAIF into funding gas infrastructure and pipelines, including pipelines that are not located in northern Australia. The independence of the board is also compromised under this. The government has never set up the NAIF in the way, in the power sharing parliament of 2010, we set up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation—that is, as an independent body with statutory authority and rigour. But the government is so unhappy with the decisions that have been made so far that it wants to exert even more control by requiring the secretary of the department to be a member of the NAIF board, undermining any semblance of independence. It makes the NAIF directly susceptible to ministerial influence. This is a slush fund for the minister to reward the big gas corporations who pay no tax, who fast track the climate crisis and who, in many instances, donate to the Liberal Party and the Labor Party.

The minister has already been spruiking fossil fuel projects and using the NAIF to further the government's discredited gas-fired recovery. When the NAIF was created, the government said:

The expert, transparent and arms-length design of the Board lends credibility to financial markets, while ensuring the Commonwealth invests in projects which are viable, provide public benefit and unlock the potential of northern Australia.

That was their spin at the time, but now they're not even pretending that that's the case. When it turned out that the investments don't favour loss-making fossil fuel endeavours, the government has tried to regain control of the decisions by rewriting the rules and exerting more control over how those decisions are made.

In the Senate inquiry into the operation of the NAIF a few years ago, we heard evidence from First Nations and regional communities in northern Australia that the board needed to take a more innovative approach to investment, looking beyond traditional and often outdated and unsustainable projects, like mines and dams, but this goes the other way.

As I mentioned earlier, the Greens strongly oppose allowing the NAIF to directly loan to entities, bypassing state and territory governments. The NAIF's clear function is to grant financial assistance to states and territories for the construction of Northern Australia economic infrastructure. But previous reviews of the NAIF identified the need of the NAIF to work more closely with state and territory governments, not to cut them out. Providing the option of bypassing the states and territories increases the federal government's power to drive new fossil fuel infrastructure at the public expense and takes away a key check and balance. Cutting out the states also raises serious and unresolved questions as to constitutional validity. This bill should, at a minimum, be sent to a committee so that this important issue can be properly considered.

In conclusion, at a time when we are faced with a climate crisis, when we know we have a few short years to turn the ship around before we go over the climate cliff after which we can't wind back the effects of climate change, most people would be looking to this parliament for a plan to get out of coal and gas. They have probably come to accept, sadly, that the government's not interested in a plan to get out of coal and gas. But most people would be shocked to know that their own money, money that could be going to schools and hospitals is instead being rerouted to big gas corporations who pay no tax, to make the climate crisis worse, simply because those corporations also happen to be donors to the Liberal and Labor parties. That is what is going on here. This is a form of money laundering that will make the climate crisis worse. By saying to the big corporations, 'We're not only going to refuse to ask you to pay your fair share of tax, we're going to use public money for you to go and build these gas pipelines that are going to fast track the climate crisis, that risk making large parts of our country uninhabitable for our children during our children's lifetime.'

We have heard, over repeated times in estimates, from our own Bureau of Meteorology who have said that as we are forecast, on current projections, to hit 3.4 degrees of global warming by the end of this century in Australia that probably means a degree higher. That means, under this government, and these smug ministers who sit there delivering for their gas corporation mates, during the lifetime of my daughter, of primary school children across this country, on current trends Australia is set to warm 4½ degrees. That is a hell scape. That means large parts of Australia, including northern Australia, will become uninhabitable during my daughter's lifetime, during the lifetime of Australia's primary school students. We should be doing everything in our power to stop that. We definitely should not be using public money to make the situation worse and that's why we oppose this bill. When it gets through here we will be moving substantial amendments in the Senate.

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