Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my honourable friend for his question. He knows that there is no city bigger or more important to Australia's manufacturing food bowl than Melbourne and its suburbs. He also knows that the National Reconstruction Fund will be key to ensuring that the world's climate emergency is Australia's jobs opportunity. That's perhaps why the creation of the National Reconstruction Fund has been supported by the Energy Efficiency Council, the Smart Energy Council, the Electric Vehicle Council and Origin Energy, who have all explicitly supported the policy.

The honourable member also asked me how the National Reconstruction Fund will build on other agencies and policies. There is no more important example than the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which has been so important in Australia's development of renewable energy industries and is now the world's most successful and largest green bank. That's very important. It is also important because, as the minister for industry has pointed out, he has based the design of the National Reconstruction Fund on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is very important.

It's also relevant because the same arguments that are being used by the only groups to oppose the National Reconstruction Fund—which is the Liberal and National parties—were the arguments they used to oppose the Clean Energy Finance Corporation 10 years ago. They're exactly the same records on repeat. If you look at what they said at the time, the member for Bradfield said 10 years ago in this house—

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