Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The good news is that the Albanese Labor government is absolutely committed to fostering innovation, productivity, value added enterprise, job creation, self-sufficiency and resilience in Australia. We are absolutely committed to doing that. We went to the election promising to introduce the National Reconstruction Fund as one of the tools by which that would be achieved, and here we are, inside the first 12 months, getting on with that job.

We need to create the means to foster all of those things if we want Australia to become more resilient and more self-sufficient. We learned through the pandemic just how important that is, and it will get only more important in the years ahead. But it's also necessary if we want to take on the challenges that face us, challenges like climate change. We need a shift to renewable energy with greater storage and energy efficiency measures. We need to make a shift when it comes to resource management and the sustainability of the limited resources that the world has and that we all use in manufacturing and in everyday life, and we can only achieve that by moving towards a circular economy. These are things that have to be taken on in Australia and around the world. This government, quite rightly, is grasping that nettle and putting in place the structure by which we can make that shift and benefit from all the good things that come with it—value added businesses with higher export value; more jobs, particularly in regional and rural Australia; and greater innovation, and we know how important innovation is. We're doing it through a proven method. We're doing it through a fund that in many ways is like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which, of course, the previous Labor government introduced. It is a structure that has been enormously successful by any measure.

I think that for people listening at home, when those opposite get up and criticise this particular fund and talk about how it's not going to be effective and it's going to have all of these terrible things associated with it—it's going to bring on the night of the living dead, things will be rising up out of the ground and marching through the streets, the sky will fall in, black clouds will roll over, and all the other very reasonable, sensible things we hear from those opposite—it's worth going back to what the Manager of Opposition Business said about the CEFC and the excellent economic judgement that he showed all those years ago. This was the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, a structure that has delivered a clean energy, energy efficiency and storage revolution in this nation, despite the best efforts of those opposite to rip it down and tear strips off it. The Manager of Opposition Business said:

I predict that this investment of $10 billion of taxpayers' money is going to turn out very, very badly. I predict that taxpayers are not going to see a good return on the $10 billion which this government has presumed to invest on their behalf in a range of speculative and unproven technologies—technologies so speculative and unproven that they are ones that the private sector has declined to invest in.

That was the judgement of the current Manager of Opposition Business. This is the CEFC, which now, all these years on, has successfully invested $11.7 billion in projects with a total value of $42 billion. So every dollar that the CEFC was able to contribute leveraged a further $2.60 of private sector investment. It's created thousands and thousands of jobs, and, by fostering the kinds of energy and energy efficiency and storage technology which Australia has to have as part of the climate change action that needs to be taken and the shift towards reliable, cheaper and cleaner energy, it's produced 5.2 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity and reduced emissions by 240 million tonnes. That is how successful the CEFC, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, has been. It was created by the former Labor government and railed against by all those opposite, who still try to pretend that it wasn't effective.

The joke when you hear those opposite talking about the financial rigour or the financial quality of the CEFC and of the National Reconstruction Fund, which follows in its path, has to be seen in the context of the things that they did in government. At one point they actually tried to reduce the return that is required under the CEFC, because they wanted to use the CEFC to fund things that they knew would not deliver an acceptable financial return. They wanted to use it to invest in things that weren't even clean energy. So anyone listening at home should take the comments those opposite about the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and therefore the National Reconstruction Fund with a little bit of reflection on history.

It is bizarre after an election where the Australian people clearly endorsed the program of this government with respect to the National Reconstruction Fund. But why would you be surprised about that? Why would anyone be surprised that the Australian people want to see investment in innovation, new manufacturing and value-added enterprise—all of those things which are clearly good in themselves and are necessary to respond to challenges like climate change, the circular economy and those sorts of things? Those opposite have said no to that in the way that they've said no to housing reform—investment in affordable and public housing—to climate change action and to energy price relief. I can't think of anything notable so far that they have said yes to. You would think that there is a limit, in parliament and in your approach to government and policy, to how often and how consistently you can say no. But apparently not, if the conduct of the opposition to date is anything to go by.

I know that my community want to see the National Reconstruction Fund support innovation and new manufacturing. I know because of the things that are going on in Fremantle, like the production of graphene. We have companies like ChemX, which I visited the other day; they're seeking to commercialise an innovative process for producing high-purity alumina. High-purity alumina is used in the manufacture of synthetic sapphires, which are used to cover the lenses of smartphones. I've got robotics, I've got autonomous aerial and submarine vehicle production, I've got vanadium battery production. I've got high-quality sustainable fisheries like Fremantle Octopus, Australia's first to be certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. I've got gaming and virtual reality tech. All of these things should be part of a bright, vibrant economic future in the 21st century in a country like Australia, but they need appropriate market shaping and investment support from government.

Another of the mistruths you will hear from those opposite is that that kind of innovation, that kind of market-shaping change in direction, will always be produced by the private alone and that the best thing government could do is stay out. Take the smartphone. What technologies does the smartphone depend on? The internet, GPS, touch screen technology—all things that were developed by government, all things that were produced through research that was government supported or undertaken. That is actually true in many areas, like biotechnology, nanotechnology, solar cell development, the internet, wifi—which Australia had a role in—and pharmaceutical breakthroughs. All of these things generally begin with publicly funded research and development. It is absolutely right that we are prepared, through properly structured means like the National Reconstruction Fund, to try to kickstart and lean into all of the changes that should be the basis of a high-tech, sophisticated, resilient manufacturing future in Australia.

I am very glad to support the National Reconstruction Fund along with my colleagues. Its basis is rock solid. It is shaped in the way that the CEFC was established, and that has been enormously successful. It has identified seven pretty clear and, to some degree, I would say, obvious areas of focus: value added resources, value added agriculture, transport, medical science, renewables and low-emissions technologies, defence and enabling capabilities. I don't know anyone over there could argue that those aren't things that we should be leaning into. That's how the National Reconstruction Fund will work. It will catalyse sophisticated manufacturing and innovation in this country, and it will do it through a proper and rigorous investment structure. I am very glad to support it. It's what the Australian community voted for last May. I guess we just keep holding on for the day, at some point in the future, when those opposite, after nine years of saying no and doing nothing in government, and now nine months of saying no to everything in opposition in this parliament, come in here and surprise us and say yes. But I won't be holding my breath.

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