Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The purpose of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2023 is to increase the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility's appropriation from $5 billion to $7 billion in order to improve its provision of financial assistance to the development of northern Australian economic infrastructure. The bill clarifies that the objectives of the act include the provision of financial assistance for the development of northern Australian economic infrastructure for the benefit of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander persons. And it further expands the definition of the term 'northern Australia' by including Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and the territorial sea adjacent to them.

The NAIF was established in 2016 to promote the construction or material enhancement of northern Australian economic infrastructure. Funded projects have to meet certain mandatory criteria. They have to provide public benefit, must be unable to get sufficient funding from commercial sources and must be able to repay their loans and recover the cost to government. The NAIF is required to comply with best-practice policies for government and for commercial financial bodies on environmental, social and governance issues.

The NAIF was initially slow to hit its straps, but its commitment of funds to low-cost loans for infrastructure projects across northern Queensland, WA and the Northern Territory has increased in the last three years. I note that in 2019 the then Labor leader, Bill Shorten, called the NAIF an abject failure. By 2020, 19 projects had been approved, for a total of $2 billion in loans, but only $130 million had actually been spent. That disbursement has now accelerated, but by early 2022 only $428 million had actually been paid out. At that stage, Labor's then shadow minister for northern Australia, Murray Watt, claimed that the NAIF was known as the 'no actual infrastructure fund' in the north.

There are persistent concerns about the NAIF as an entity and about the quality of its financial reporting. This is in contrast to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which also acts as a specialist investment vehicle of the federal government. The CEFC's financing facilities are included as part of its income statements and balance sheet, enabling its financial performance to be assessed on a comprehensive basis. In contrast, the NAIF has not been fully corporatised. It does not have a special account to receive appropriations. Its formal reporting has been limited to its own operational outcomes, making it difficult to determine exactly how its portfolio is evolving and performing. In 2019 the Auditor-General identified a concerning lack of transparency around its decisions and stated that the NAIF's internal remuneration practices were inconsistent with those of the public sector. The NAIF also has recently come under fire about its governance arrangements, given that it has a ministerial veto on projects—and I note that in May 2021 the Morrison government used that veto to block public funding of a Queensland wind farm and battery project.

The NAIF has been used for some positive projects in recent years. As we heard from the members for Solomon and Lingiari this morning, the NAIF has already been used to fund Humpty Doo Barramundi projects; improvements to the Darwin, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs airports; the Batchelor solar farm; improvements to Indigenous tourism; and structural improvements to Charles Darwin University. However, under the Morrison government the NAIF also showed itself to be very supportive of fossil fuel industries. It allotted $300 million to the Darwin ship lift and $16.8 million to the Onslow Marine Support Base. Both support the oil and gas industries. It approved $37 million for the Hudson Creek power station, a 12-megawatt capacity gas-fired power plant in Darwin. Most recently, in 2020, the NAIF was used to fund Pembroke Resources' Olive Downs metallurgical coalmine, a bigger project than Adani, which also sought funding from this fund, in 2017.

I seek from this government an assurance that this fund will not be used to further the expansion of fossil fuel projects in the Top End. I refer to the statement of former Labor leader Bill Shorten in 2019, when he said that under a Labor government up to $1.5 billion could be set aside for proposed gas pipelines across Queensland's Galilee and Bowen basins and for a pipeline connecting the Beetaloo basin to Darwin and across to the east coast. He noted then that that area had enough gas to potentially supply our domestic market for up to 400 years.

As things are, the increase in funding for the NAIF provided under this bill could be used to support Beetaloo infrastructure projects. We're hearing that the fund could be used for upgrades to roads, rail, pipelines and waste facilities to support those developments. The obvious concern is that our public funds will be used to prop up fossil fuel developments owned by Tamboran, Santos and Empire Energy, developments likely doomed to become stranded assets with the decreasing cost of energy produced from renewables.

In 2021 the Morrison government allotted grants from the $50 million Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program to Imperial Oil and Gas to support new exploration wells to help accelerate the development of gas projects in the Northern Territory. When that decision was challenged by the Environmental Centre NT, which argued that the minister was required to make reasonable inquiries into a range of matters before giving Imperial that taxpayer money, the question was raised of whether or not the government had to consider the impact of climate change and Australia's ability to meet its Paris Agreement obligations in undertaking funding for such projects. The court found that, in that particular case, that the minister did not have to consider the risks of climate change because the greenhouse gas emissions arising from the seven wells for which the grant was awarded were not significant due to them being solely for exploration for fracking. But the findings did enforce that federal ministers do have a legal obligation to make reasonable inquiries about the proper use of public money when making funding decisions of this sort.

This bill has clarified that the objectives of the NAIF Act include the provision of financial assistance for the development of northern Australia economic infrastructure for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons have already expressed their concern about fossil fuel developments in the far north. These are people living in a part of Australia which is at the forefront of the impact of climate change. Recently we've seen the Tiwi Islanders successfully taking on Santos to stop gas drilling in their traditional waters. At the same time, we have seen traditional owners opposing developments in the Beetaloo basin. They have told us that that land is culturally sensitive and that it must be preserved. This flies in the face of the Albanese government's planned support for any fossil fuel companies which aim to exploit the gas basins in the Beetaloo.

In a briefing with the minister, Minister Madeleine King, on 22 March 2023, she assured me and other members of the crossbench that NAIF funding would not be used to support the Middle Arm project in Darwin harbour. I ask the government to put that assurance in writing. I ask it also to guarantee further that the NAIF will not be used to support the development of infrastructure projects in the Beetaloo basin. We will hold the Albanese government to account on these commitments.

There are incredible opportunities to fund sustainable, job-creating projects in northern Australia. Those opportunities should not be wasted on fossil fuel projects destined to become stranded assets. They should be used on renewables, on projects like the Sun Cable project—projects which really do benefit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons. These individuals do not want thousands of fracking wells scattered across their country for gas which will be fracked and then exported for the benefit of multinationals rather than Australians. They want culturally sensitive and environmentally sound projects which will minimise rather than increasing our susceptibility to the effects of climate change. I ask the government to act with integrity and with transparency and to commit to culturally and environmentally responsible investment in this vital region.

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