Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill. Although on the surface it has the appearance of trying to achieve something that we all want—increasing the manufacturing industry in this country—this is a bad bill for so many reasons. The government are the masters of smoke and mirrors and slogans. They are exceptional in stating the problems—which just about anyone in the country can do—but rarely provide solutions, which is the very function that governments are supposed to perform.

As is the practice of this all-show and no-substance government, they introduce bills with little to no detail with underlying motives and they then try to hide those motives from the Australian people: hidden agendas that serve one purpose—to increase the membership of their masters and puppeteers, the unions. Labor have always been and always will be the enemy of small business. No matter how hard they try to spin it in a different way, their underlying obligations and first loyalties will always lie with their union masters, who will always try to steer any government business assistance to the big corporates, who they can negotiate union membership deals with—something much harder to do with the thousands of small businesses across the country.

In reading this proposed legislation and the structure of the corporation, there are red flags everywhere. The fund will be administered by a board. Clause 19, on the appointment of board members, says that the board members are to be appointed by ministers. In other words, it'll be stacked with Labor and union-friendly board members that will ensure funds are distributed to businesses that will have a union membership component to them.

To be truly transparent and avoid any pork-barrelling and involvement from outside parties, the process should be via the robust competitive grants process, with politicians removed, to ensure decisions are made without partiality and on merit only. As is the practice of this 'just write a blank cheque, and we'll fill in the details later' government, there are no details on the eligibility of potential applicants and recipients of funding under this program. Does a business have to be of a certain size, as far as staffing numbers, turnover or floor space? Is there a geographical location requirement? What happens if the loan is not able to be repaid, either through poor management and business decisions or through factors that are outside the business's control, like supply chain issues or lower margins to a more competitive market? If the government has an equity in a business, what is the government's tax obligations? What happens if the majority of the business is sold to overseas individuals or shareholders?

Another problem with this bill is that it's modelled on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation initiative, which took way too long for funds to start flowing. Industry feedback suggests this type of funding takes years to get right, and that means lost years for manufacturers. This government needs to leave business investment to businesses and the private sector, and get on with supporting them to get on with whatever their business is by ensuring there are workers with the required training available to employ and that there is reliable and affordable energy to meet the needs of the business. They need to cut red tape and compliance so businesses can spend their days actually focused on manufacturing the products and not in an office filling out government forms to meet, in the main, unnecessary regulations dreamt up by politicians and bureaucrats.

The only other reason I can see for them wanting to go down this path is that they have finally realised that under any Labor government business confidence falls, and falls rapidly; therefore, private investment dries up. My own experience in business for over 20 years is that when a Labor government has been in power, the growth in my businesses has been modest—in the low, single digit range at best, or zero growth. In contrast, when the coalition have been in government, every business I have had ownership of in that period has had double digit growth.

Again, Labor have missed an opportunity to provide practical support to the business community for three reasons: firstly, they simply don't get business or the economy; secondly, they have to consider their union masters in every decision; and, thirdly, they will never be able to inspire the most critical thing of all, which is business confidence. You see, I know that in my own business, when Labor are in, we stop spending because we simply don't trust them or their union masters. This is something that cannot be changed, as a business community knows a leopard never changes its spots. Conversely, when the coalition are in government, business open their chequebooks, as we know they have our backs. And, if you look after business, this flows through to the worker.

Another question that must be answered is: if this is to work—which it won't—where will the workers come from to fill the jobs in these new manufacturing businesses? There is a critical labour shortage, and Labor's ridiculous idea to bring in workers from the Pacific islands via a lottery system is flawed. It will result only in the Pacific losing their youngest and brightest people, therefore causing a detriment to their societies—not to mention the clause that allows them to come over on a visa and leave a job after a week and be qualified for our welfare system, which will only create greater cost to our already overburdened welfare system. That is a joke. The coalition's $2.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Fund, which was underway and which had empowered 200 projects across the country, had been independently assessed by experts in this field and in the department. It was reviewed by the minister purely for political reasons—again, causing another delay in getting manufacturing going in this country.

If anyone knows anything about manufacturing they know that with the highest labour costs and one of the highest energy and compliance costs in the world, we simply cannot compete against countries which have much lower costs and which make low-margin fast-moving products, like the electrical appliance industry that I was in for 20 years. We have to focus on the niche products that have the majority of the focus on quality rather than price. This is why it beggars belief that the coalition's Australian space manufacturing industry has been kicked in the guts by the decision of this Labor government to remove it as a priority area. Again, they simply have no clue.

This government makes out that the opposition never votes with or agrees with them. This is untrue, because in fact we have voted with them on some bills. But it is true that we don't vote with them on bills that are duds, and there have been plenty of those. There's the one that was the first step to what I call the 'communism bill'. Last December we were flown in from around the country and saw the result of the renewable energy 'Kool-Aid' program that the Labor Party has got involved with. It's driving up energy prices. They flew us all in to cap—to cap!—in this country, in this democracy, pricing. The most ridiculous part about it was that it was wholesale pricing; it wasn't even retail! So that allows retail to price gouge. Again, it just reinforces that they have no business sense at all.

I ask: what is next? Are we going to cap the price of milk? Of bread? This is not what a democracy in a free-enterprise country does. Of course we aren't going to agree with or vote for an undemocratic and anti-free-market bill like that. And we won't support this union-membership-drive bill either. Australia, make no mistake: every decision this Labor government makes doesn't have the best interest of Australian business or Australian workers in mind. It will always have the primary function of driving up union membership, whatever the cost. This bill is a classic example of that.

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