Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am somewhat pleased to speak on the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2022, because I'm doing the right thing. But, at the same time, I'm somewhat disappointed, because a National Reconstruction Fund which is purporting to improve manufacturing in the nation and give people jobs sounds like a great thing. It ticks all the right boxes emotionally, that's for sure. It makes you feel good, like a lot of what Labor announces—it's all about the feel good. But the reality, and the reason why I'm disappointed, is that with this bill the detail just does not pass muster—the detail of how this reconstruction fund will be applied is really quite concerning and limited.

I know that the government went to the last election with this as an election policy plank. But, in saying that, since that election, Prime Minister Albanese has broken so many promises I don't think he can be trusted to implement a $15 billion spend of government money—of taxpayer money, our money—with any degree of competence. Certainly, on the integrity level, and on the trust level, the trust is broken. Let's not forget that this is the Prime Minister who in the lead-up to the last election promised to lower our electricity bills by $275. That was a really important promise that he made to average Australians like my kids. I was at my son's place the other day and he showed me his electricity bill. He's a young guy starting out in life with a little family. This promise to Australians in his position where every cent counts—$275 is something they listen to—turned out to be an absolute broken promise. Cheaper mortgages were, once again, another promise. We'd have cheaper mortgages under this Labor Albanese government and what do we have? We have had nine consecutive interest rate rises. These are the promises that have been broken that make me think I can't support a National Reconstruction Fund. What will it turn into in this government that can't be trusted and this Prime Minister Albanese, who also can't be trusted?

This will no doubt turn into some sort of, as has been said here before, union slush fund. I understand there is a place for unions in this country. Absolutely, they are a important part of the industrial make up of industry and our economy. But when Labor get their hands on the Treasury benches, we know they do the wrong thing and they certainly look after the unions in a way that the average Australian would not think is right.

Another broken promise that makes me think this National Reconstruction Fund is never going to be applied as said is 'no changes to superannuation'. I mean, you could not get it any clearer that the Prime Minister and the now Treasurer stated in the lead up to the last election that they would not tamper with superannuation, but what did we get? We have serious changes to superannuation that have rocked confidence. People like, as I said, my kids who are starting off in life, do not know what is happening to their future now because of this government that can't be trusted.

If this government really wants to do something about manufacturing, if this government wants to turbocharge manufacturing—we all want to turbocharge Australian manufacturing and we want products made in Australia—there are two things they can do straightaway: get out of the way of business with unnecessary regulation and forget all of this ridiculous green tape that ties every business down in this country, that stops them from progressing and give them confidence and lower electricity prices. They can do that instead of capping production, which is always going to increase the price of electricity. Increasing supply will bring the price of electricity down. You would be bringing down a significant input into manufacturing. And guess what? If you stimulate businesses like that, they are going to make more, they are going to innovate more, they are going to employ more, and the economy will start moving again. But no. Of course, the ideology of the left, which is running the Labor Party and which will control the policy is, no, let's bog it down with green tape and really strangle business.

I have sugarcane farmers in Wide Bay who need to irrigate and their power bills have soared from $2,000 a month to $6,000 a month. This is what we need to be targeting—lowering those electricity prices—but that is not what is happening here. That is not what is happening with this piece of legislation. I have a butcher in my area and he runs his business 24 hours a day. His power bills have soared to $4,000 a month. If you want to increase manufacturing, if you want to create jobs, if you want to stimulate the Australian economy and get us going like we should, do something about that. Increase the supply of those products—gas and coal—and those products that our economy is being built on. Increase supply and that will help with inputs for business in Wide Bay.

Power brokers have warned businesses in my area that they should expect an increase of 20 per cent when signing a new contract. Is it not obvious that this is an area we need to target to stimulate growth? This relates to manufacturers who already exist in Wide Bay, which has a proud manufacturing industry. We support the mining industry with heavy manufacturing, particularly in and around the areas of Gympie and Maryborough. We don't need to establish new businesses. New businesses are always nice, but we need to support the businesses that currently exist. Instead, people are being told that, under an Albanese government, they're to expect a 20 per cent increase in their power bill.

LNG costs have risen 30 per cent. Liquid carbon dioxide, for the rapid chilling of fresh trimmings, rose 366 per cent for one of my meat processors. That's approximately $450,000 a year, heading towards half a million dollars a year. That's money that doesn't go into building that business and doesn't go into expanding the market. Meat processing plants need diesel, mainly for mobile plant and equipment. Prices of diesel for them have increased in the order of 160 per cent. What is the government doing about this? Absolutely nothing. Cooling the products in line with the refrigeration index and other standards is essential to maintain eating quality and food safety. If we have an unreliable electricity network, resulting in outages for a business that needs to refrigerate products, the net loss per incident for the product alone could be more than $900,000 for some of my producers for a medium-term part-day outage and up to $7 million for a long-term several-day outage.

These are problems we have with our power supply as we go down the path of implementing these policies from Labor that will undoubtably add unreliability into the network. These are the things we should be addressing. We should be putting confidence into manufacturing, not destroying it. Abattoirs are only efficient when running at total capacity with limited interruption. Due to the processing being quite labour-intensive, they have a large workforce. My local one has about 550 people.

I would really like to support a bill that is genuine and can be trusted, and a government that can be trusted to implement a big economic responsibility like this. Within the very short time this government has been in power, it has shown that it can't be trusted. Today, when the Minister for Financial Services gave an explanation of self-managed superannuation funds, it could only be described as either not telling the truth or incompetent; it was one of the two. So how can we trust this government to implement a program that is going to spend $15 billion of hard-earned taxpayers' money? I would like to do it, but I simply can't.

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