Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment Bill 2026, and I have to admit I'm getting a bit of deja vu. I've had this bill in this House previously, and I still have the same issues with it. It is an incredibly important fund and aspect, for Northern Australia needs that investment. Earlier last year I had the opportunity to travel around the Torres Strait Islands, and it's incredibly clear how much investment is needed in the northern and more remote areas of Australia. This NAIF facility is incredibly important. I absolutely support that northern Australia needs investment. It needs roads, ports, transmission, storage, water, housing, community infrastructure and clean industry. But let's be really clear: what it does not need is a publicly backed slush fund for fossil fuel expansion.

This bill extends the NAIF's life to 30 June 2036. That is considerable. That is a further 10 years. It strengthens its governance settings, including joint ministerial responsibility and future review. But the central flaw of this bill is what it does not do. It does not rule out public money being used for fossil fuel infrastructure, and it does not require NAIF decisions to align with Australia's legislated climate goals. It does not make clear the consultation with First Nations Australians. If government and parliament are going to extend this facility—extend a $7 billion financing vehicle—for another decade, then parliament must also set clear public-interest guardrails. The NAIF says that it now has 32 projects and more than $4 billion in commitments. That scale makes the absence of climate guardrails and consistency even more serious and concerning.

Under the Morrison government the NAIF was expanded, and critics warned it could be used to support coal and gas. In January 2022, when the coalition announced an extra $2 billion of funding through the NAIF, it would not rule out the facility being used for projects such as the Beetaloo Basin—absolute carbon bombs in the making—with devastating consequences for climate change.

In 2021, when the Morrison government changed the NAIF framework, I moved amendments to prohibit NAIF assistance for fossil fuel based infrastructure, expressly including not funding natural gas projects or pipelines. Let's be clear. Gas companies are making super profits. They do not need public funding to facilitate them making money off the backs of Australians. Those amendments said that financial assistance must not be provided for fossil fuel based infrastructure. They have already benefited from generations of generous public subsidies. We cannot continue to do that and sensibly balance the budget. Gas was included in that definition, of course, as part of fossil fuels. Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for bad fossil fuel investments, so I will be moving amendments to prohibit fossil fuel funding through the NAIF.

Of course, it was not accepted under the Morrison government, but it's disappointing to see that these same loopholes exist under the Albanese government. In 2023, when the NAIF was expanded from $5 billion to $7 billion, I again warned this parliament that government investment in resource extraction, particularly fossil fuels, remained a major concern, and I again proposed amendments to stop public money being used to prop up further fossil fuel infrastructure.

The contrast is stark. History seems to be repeating itself. On one side, we extend the NAIF and commit significant amounts of public funds, and we leave the door open for fossil fuel funding. On the other, we have an opportunity to extend the NAIF—only modernised for the decade that we're actually in. Expand it so you're generally helping the northern communities with infrastructure they need, which will help them be resilient, productive and healthy into the future. In a decade of climate risk, the net-zero transition and the need for genuine partnership with First Nations communities, it is so important that a fund of this scale has the appropriate guardrails.

The facts and statistics that put the challenges and opportunities into perspective are stark. The wider issues this bill is trying to address are real. Northern Australia does face chronic infrastructure gaps. Capital is harder to secure. Distance and remoteness increase costs. Communities need long-term funding certainty. There is a real role for public finance to crowd in private investment where markets fail. I absolutely agree, and I support this, loudly, but an effective game plan for northern Australia's development in 2026 cannot look like a replay of 2021, or even previous years. First, back the infrastructure that actually prepares the north of Australia for the future it is facing. This includes transmission, storage, road, port resilience, community infrastructure and clean energy. Second, stop treating gas expansion as if it were nation building. It is not. It is just writing a blank cheque for gas companies to make superprofits. Third, require public financing to be consistent with Australia's climate law. This is not antidevelopment; this is smart and responsible investment into our future. Even the NAIF's own public messaging now talks about helping northern Australia transition to a renewable energy superpower, yet the legislation still lacks a clear prohibition on fossil fuel funding. That contradiction should be resolved in law, not in marketing copy.

Fossil fuel related projects continue to be funded under the NAIF from decisions made by the Morrison government, and the Albanese government has done nothing to stop that. The Olive Downs Steelmaking Coal Project, approved in 2021, produces 4.5 million tonnes of steelmaking coal per annum. Funding for the Onslow Marine Support Base expansion project, approved in 2017 and funded by a 10-year loan, supports vessels operating in the offshore oil and gas industry in Western Australia. A loan to the Chichester Solar and Gas Hybrid Project in Western Australia, approved by the NAIF in 2019 at a total cost of $90 million, is to be repaid over 22 years. It is clear there are still a number of projects, including fossil fuels and gas in particular, that are getting access to public funding through the NAIF. That is precisely why we need to do something about this. The funding pipeline remains heavily weighted towards resource extraction and associated industrial development.

We need legislative guardrails. A facility can avoid direct fossil fuel approvals in recent periods and still remain structurally open to fossil fuel funding. The issue is both what the NAIF has funded recently, and what this bill still allows the NAIF to fund in the future. On gas company profits, I've sought from the Parliamentary Library an analysis of just how much profit there is from the ATO office. The statistics show that the oil and gas extraction sector report incredibly large profits in the most recent available year.

In accordance with that analysis, the sector's total profits or losses are just staggering, and yet somehow public funding should be available to help fund infrastructure. It simply is obscene. When we think about what's sensible economic management, the pressures on the budget and every other aspect of the economy, we should be asking, as a basic public policy question, why should public concession finance be available to support an industry generating superprofits on a scale that is just breathtaking?

If gas proponents say their projects are commercially attractive then they should be able to finance them on that basis. They should not be requiring concessional finance through government funding. If they need taxpayer backed support to proceed, then parliament is entitled to ask whether the public is carrying a risk for those projects whose private returns are already substantial. Are we asking the NAIF then to fund projects that will ultimately be stranded assets? It reinforces the case that scarce public capital should be directed to public interest infrastructure, not used to the risk fossil fuel expansion.

I totally support that the bill has a legitimate purpose in extending the NAIF's decision-making window and maintaining an investment vehicle for northern Australia. There is a case for continuity, and I know the need is dire across so many areas. But there is definitely clear need for guardrails to ensure public funds are not used to further fund fossil fuel expansions. The amendment deals with funding decisions; making this legislation consistent with current law around the Climate Change Act and the net zero by 2050 obligation; prohibiting finance under the NAIF for gas facilities, including pipelines; and mandating consultation with First Nations for funding decisions under the NAIF. Too often we hear of First Nations communities who are being sidelined from public consultation in northern Australia but who are going to be impacted by projects, and that is just wrong. I don't understand how the Albanese government can continue with a process that does not embed proper consultation.

Left unamended, this bill extends the NAIF without clearly defining the public interest boundaries of that extension. A modern public finance institution should not be technology blind where the technologies in question carry radically different long-term risks for the communities that they are intending to help. Let's be very clear—we are on track to at least 2.5 to 2.6 degrees of warming. The consequences for northern Australia are dire. Those areas will have severe impacts. We are talking about heatwaves, a number of days per year that will be incredibly difficult, we are talking about their vulnerable communities becoming more vulnerable and we are talking about a much higher risk of floods and disasters.

So let's be really clear—is this concessional funding supposed to make this problem worse or better? If the NAIF were focused on actually building adaptation and resilience for northern Australia, I would be applauding, because that would actually make sense. But, if we don't have guardrails to ensure that the NAIF is not used to make the very problem those communities are going to face worse, then this is just bad spending.

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