Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hunter, who's making an enormous contribution to this place. It's so fantastic to have another regional member who understands just how important manufacturing is to our regions—unlike those opposite. It's why we are so determined to make sure that one of the key positive changes that Australians voted for at the last election is actually introduced, and that is the National Reconstruction Fund.

It's a $15 billion fund that will provide finance to projects that will diversify and transform Australia's industry and our economy, securing our supply chains and increasing our national sovereignty when it comes to manufactured goods. It will make Australia more productive, it will give Australians more jobs and it means that we will make more things here in this country. The fund will be the biggest investment in manufacturing capability in living memory.

So why would anyone be opposed to it? When you look at the priority areas for investment, you can clearly see that the vast benefits will flow to regional Australians, value-adding in critical minerals, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, defence and transport, renewables, and low-emissions technologies. All of these industries are focused in regional Australia. Just last week I held a roundtable to guide the establishment of the Jet Zero Council here in Australia. The meeting included representatives of airlines, airports, investors, feedstock producers, scientists and fuel producers, all unified by a desire to grow a sustainable aviation fuel industry here in this country to help a sector where it is really hard to abate. It is exactly the kind of industry that the National Reconstruction Fund, alongside the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, can be supporting, and that is good news for regional Australia because it is exactly where the jobs will be. Sugarcane, sugar milling in North Queensland, canola in Western Australia, and tallow all across the country—it can all be used to create sustainable aviation fuel, and can be the engine room for a new generation of clean jobs, clean energy and clean manufacturing here in this country. This is just one example of one industry, but there are jobs and opportunities that should be unleashed right the way across Australia, and the National Reconstruction Fund will do just that.

With all of those benefits, why would anyone be opposed to the National Reconstruction Fund? Who wouldn't want to see more jobs and investment in regional Australia? Who wouldn't want to see more regional manufacturing? We wouldn't want to see regional Australia benefit from manufacturing jobs? Those opposite, that's who.

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