Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2022 which establishes the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation with approximately $15 billion to invest in so-called priority areas of the Australian economy. However, at this juncture we have no precise idea what those priority areas will be. The government has full discretion to define them by disallowable legislative instrument.

We do have some idea about seven priority areas that have mentioned so far: renewables and low emission technologies; medical science; transport; value-adding agriculture, forestry and fisheries; value-adding resources; defence capabilities—and we've heard AUKUS thrown around us, as though Labor had come up with it; and enabling capabilities such as robotics, artificial intelligence and quantum. It's fair to say that in Labor's land anything could be a priority area really, and nothing is ruled out. It's one of those speciality policy areas where the Labor Party is so good, and where everyone thinks they're going to win a prize, until they realise it's just the usual suspects who are going to take home the loot.

In terms of spend by priority area, we aren't much clearer there either. There's been some suggestion there will be $2 billion for renewables and low emission technologies, $1.5 billion for medical manufacturing, $1 billion for value adding and resources, $1 billion for critical technologies, $1 billion for advanced manufacturing and only $500 million for value-adding in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and fibre. It makes you wonder what they did wrong.

Make no mistake, I do support these industries wholeheartedly that the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation will target, but I think we need to do that by creating the right circumstances in the Australian economy, by creating a context which supports investment, rewards effort and hard work, underpins commercialisation and invests in scientific endeavour. Governments should go down the path of picking winners only with caution, care and hesitation.

As we have seen before, playing to and backing our natural advantages usually makes good sense in policy settings, as the former coalition government did from time to time—for example, when it established the senior investment specialists in the trade and investment portfolio back in 2013-14. Their responsibility was to focus on national investment areas of food and agribusiness, resources and energy, economic infrastructure, tourism and education, and advanced manufacturing, services and technology. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, these were also the industries in which we pursued enhanced market access through our free trade agreements at the time, many of which were completed by the former government. But the coalition's policies put business, not government, in the driving seat of Australia's economic and industrial success.

Let me talk to you of just a few in my electorate of Flinders which have thrived under the coalition's policy settings over the last few years. In Flinders alone, on the Mornington Peninsula—a place that people often think of as hills, beaches, golf and great wine—we also have global leading manufacturers such as BlueScope Steel, which provides COLOURBOND to the world; farm and agricultural businesses like Gazzola Farms, whose broccoli and cos lettuce you'll find in all good supermarkets throughout the country, and Peninsula Fresh organics for the best organic veggies; and resource companies like Esso, from whose endeavours your summer barbecue bottle will be filled.

Let me talk to you about just one local manufacturer in some detail, Sealite, which the Leader of the Opposition recently visited with me when he came down to Flinders in late January. Sealite is a specialist in maritime transportation, headquartered in Somerville. That's in the northern part of my electorate. It was founded back in 1982 by, among a few others, the remarkable Chris Proctor, a local inventor and industrialist, in his garage no less. Today, Sealite is a technology leader on a global scale in both the design and manufacture of marine aids to navigation equipment, including marine lighting, navigation buoys, marine floats, port entry lighting systems, lighthouse lighting equipment, and monitoring and control system software. Sealite designs and manufactures marine aids and navigation equipment with manufacturing and office locations not just in Australia now but also in Singapore, the United Kingdom, Columbia and the United States. Sealite and its distributors service over 100 countries across the globe. When I visited their manufacturing base in Somerville in mid-2022 I could see they were about to send products and goods all over the world—to the Gulf state, all through the Indo-Pacific and, of course, to my personal favourite, the Maldives.

The amazing, dedicated Sealite team services the global marine industry through the efficient design of solutions that withstand the toughest ocean environments. The company employs many locals in the Somerville and Hastings area in my electorate, some of whom have been with the company for decades. You'll be lucky to see their navigation buoys all over the world. When you look out port side or starboard in any kind of vessel, you'll often see a large, round buoy with a big light on top, guiding you safely to shore. There's a good chance it's from Sealite and from my local town of Somerville.

Avlite Systems is a subsidiary of Sealite, an award-winning manufacturer of aids to aviation navigation. You will see their white triangle markers along most runways and runway lights sparkle all around aviation and airports all across the world. In fact, I saw some last week at the Tyabb airfield with the member for Canning, Andrew Hastie, who kindly agreed to come to Flinders from Avalon, where he was meeting with defence industry representatives at the International Airshow. He came across last week to visit HMVS Cerberus but also the home of the other biannual airshow, the famous Tyabb airshow, the next one of which will be held in March 2024. It has one of the most important collections of historical aircraft and is home to about a hundred peninsular aero club enthusiasts in all things aviation, but, importantly, it has Avlite's triangle markers down the side of the runway and also its lights guiding everyone safely home.

Avlite operates purpose-built facilities and employs a highly trained team of engineers and production specialists in its operations. Through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, Sealite and Avlite have broad capabilities to meet the demands of new product design, manufacture and program delivery for aviation clients globally. When you go to visit them, as the Leader of the Opposition and I did back in January, you will see their amazing purpose-built manufacturing plant in Somerville, which is now bursting at the seams, having acquired buildings down the street and across the road. You will see the amazing world-leading research and development they undertake. They are an amazing group of inventors. Indeed, they had to become amazing inventors when their supply chains collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They are experts in in-house surface-mount technology electronics and robotic assembly lines. They have an in-house rotational moulding and injection moulding capability, which is a marvel to be seen. And they have in-house high precision injection mould toolmaking as well.

Sealite has recently become part of the global SPX Corporation, a manufacturer of products that guide vessels safely into ports and harbours all around the globe. That parent company, SPX, is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and had approximately $1.5 billion in annual revenue in 2019 and over 4½ thousand employees in 17 countries.

I'm so very grateful to Managing Director Michael Walker and his team for taking Peter Dutton and I on this amazing tour of their Somerville plant. I also recognise and shout out to Chris Procter and his fellow founders for creating such a magnificent local business, taking its wares to the world.

Mike and Chris are indicative of the good folk of Flinders, who cry out for one thing, who tell us what they need but are told by this government that they really need something different. In this case, they need the National Reconstruction Fund, which seems to deliver on what the Labor Party wants and potentially what the union movement wants, not what our struggling and striving Australian manufacturers need. The model that Labor wishes to implement in a no doubt well-intentioned policy is not what is currently needed. This bill, much like everything else the Albanese government has presented to the constituents of my electorate, completely misses the mark.

They pick winners from Labor-friendly National Reconstruction Fund recipients, but at the same time my constituents lose some of the things that they had been planning for and looking forward to for years. I cite the National Centre for Coasts and Climate, which was going to put a globally recognised research institute in climate change and the study of the flora and fauna of our waters and seas in the Point Nepean National Park. I cite the loss of the electrification of the Stony Point rail line to Baxter. We have the only metropolitan Melbourne train line that's still run on diesel. I cite the other thing they've lost, which is funding for the Jetty Road overpass, which has recently been deferred till 2026-27, even though the good folk of Rosebud have been expecting that since at least 2019, if not earlier.

They are losing funding for mobile black spots, they are getting no help with the cost of living, and all they are seeing is skyrocketing energy prices and land tax from the Andrews Labor government. The people of Flinders and its manufacturers and its agricultural businesses are not being given the support they need by this government, and nothing in this bill proves that statement wrong.

See this speech in context