Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this bill, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment Bill 2026. I'd like to respond to a couple of things the member for Warringah brought up. We understand what you're saying and what the community is asking. But the first thing is that, on First Nations participation, I think the point should be made that financing is conditional upon First Nations communities being incorporated into procurement and employment opportunities. As of last year, NAIF financing had supported over 1,385 jobs for Indigenous people in northern Australia and at least $240 million in Indigenous procurement. The government is very focused on getting a just and equitable outcome for First Nations people through this legislation.

The second thing I'd say is that, while this piece of legislation may not deal entirely with the net zero objectives of the government, it forms a part of that. You've got other measures, such as the Net Zero Fund, which recognise that. As a government we understand, and as an individual I understand, the wrench that the decarbonisation of the world economy has put in the Australian economy, particularly the Queensland economy. But I think the point should be made that, ultimately, this is not about funding oil and gas projects. This is about funding infrastructure, a lot of which will serve dual purposes. This is about unlocking roads and rail lines.

I think the point needs to be made not only that there is a broader approach to net zero, which this government is very focused on, but also that we have to maintain a balance and that energy security is just as important. Ultimately, it is the people in the community that I represent and the communities that we represent who would be impacted the hardest if we completely shut down those industries. I think the government's approach is the most sensible approach available to us. It is an approach of renewable energy, firmed by gas and batteries. I'm not exactly sure what an alternative approach that takes out gas would look like. I know what the opposition's approach is, though. It's the most expensive approach of coal and nuclear. I don't quite know why they're pursuing that policy, but I think it's because they've got an ideological obsession to prove their credentials in fighting the science of climate change. That's why they're going with coal and gas. They think that, if they can credibly pursue an argument that coal and gas is the answer, then they don't need to address climate change. I think that's why they're stuck on that loop. The government's approach is a whole approach to reduce net zero.

That's why this bill is important to me both on a personal level and on a political level. Personally, some members will know, I come from the bush—not northern Australia; I'm not privileged enough to come from above that line just below Rockhampton. I come from outback Australia, and I appreciate the economic potential that exists not just below the ground and walking around in paddocks but of the people of outback Australia and northern Australia. There is a spirit of resilience, a spirit of entrepreneurialism and a commitment to have a go. If we can help people in that area, if we can help the economy of that area, it is going to have an enormous benefit for people in the rest of Australia.

That's the second reason that I'd like to support this bill. I know, being privileged to represent and live in an outer metropolitan seat covering Logan and the Gold Coast, how important those northern Australian industries are to our local economy. The importance of that is hidden. In fact, I was looking at some of the statistics the other day. There's a suburb in Forde called Wolffdene, where five per cent of the whole workforce works directly in mining as FIFO workers. I think that Logan and the northern Gold Coast communities would have to be the biggest mining commuting communities in South-East Queensland. They're the direct jobs arising out of that development in the north of Australia. Then there are the indirect jobs. Think of Hastings Deering, which is set up next to the light plane airfield out at Archerfield in Brisbane. It employs thousands of people in South-East Queensland who service the dump trucks and the loaders and that enormous mining material that then goes up to northern Queensland to work on those mines. So you've got people that work directly in the mining industry and people that work in the service and maintenance industry. It just shows that, from an employment point of view, supercharging development in the North has an enormous benefit for people in the community that that I represent.

Of course, it is not just employment. This gets back to something I'm saying earlier. We as a government recognise what a wrench it is for the Australian economy to now be in a decarbonising world economy. Coal is still Queensland's single biggest export. It provides an enormous amount of money to the government directly through coal royalties. These are the sorts of services that people in our community rely on, provided by government and effectively paid for by coal royalties. So it is important that something like the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility not only has an eye to developing for the North but has an eye to developing and replacing the industries which will be affected by a decarbonising world.

I won't be too unkind to the opposition, seeing as they were the ones that set it up, but there was a bit of a joke at the time that 'NAIF' actually stood for the 'No Actual Infrastructure Fund'. It did take some time to get going, but it's got going now, and I understand the opposition is supportive of it continuing, which is exactly what this legislation does—it sees it continuing until 2036.

I think this approach is a fantastic way for government to get in behind industry and to give it that push for a loan that may not get through the bean counters at the Commonwealth Bank or at Macquarie. This is really government stepping in and providing that essential service of finance. Philosophically, I love that saying that you run a country like you run a company. That, I think, sometimes that gets thrown by the Libs as if to say we can't run the country. There are two ways to run a company. I've run a company; I know it. One is that you can invest in your plant and your people. The other is that you can delay the maintenance, you can strip out the profits, and you can run it into the ground. That is exactly what the NAIF does. That is exactly the Labor government's approach to running the country—investing in our plant and in our people. Even better, this is an investment that actually has a measurable return on its investment. This is money that will keep coming back in, so that the money can then be used again and again to grow the economy even further. This is an investment in the classic sense of the word. This will actually return dollars back into the government.

So, as I say, this NAIF fund sits within a broader strategy not only of achieving net zero but of housing. For example, the government has worked with the Queensland government to invest in the Cairns Seniors Community Housing Project, providing a loan of $140 million to the Cairns Seniors Community Housing Project—working with the Queensland government and working with Housing Australia to deliver 490 dwellings, comprising 245 social dwellings, 223 affordable and 22 SDA, specialist disability accommodation, apartments, providing housing to around 690 people. That's because there's a recognition here that housing is—in my view, which is a view that I've long held—the No. 1 thing that a government can do to improve economic capacity and productivity in the community.

In postwar Australia, there was a philosophy that, if we build public housing not just for the people who desperately needed it but for car workers, railway workers, teachers, police officers, aged-care workers, then we keep the cost of living down. That means that we keep rents down, which actually takes pressure off wages because they don't need to be so high. So you can maintain a high standard of living with a low cost of living. That helps business. Projects like this are providing that economic infrastructure. I guess the hint is in the name: the North Australian Infrastructure Facility. Projects like the housing project here are a material example of how the NAIF fits into the government's broader economic strategy.

But of course it is not just that. There's also net zero. I have never seen net zero as an economic problem. Net zero is a massive economic opportunity. If anything at the moment we have seen what it means when you are reliant on international energy supplies. I don't understand why the opposition are so wedded to coal and nuclear. Well, perhaps I do. Perhaps it is because they think that they need to satisfy Sky News—I mean their base—by saying that coal and nuclear are still the way. That way, they can avoid all the arguments about climate change science. But I just don't get why you would want to be walking away from what is the cheapest form of energy, which is renewable, which has the power to lift economic living standards.

As I said, in postwar Australia, housing was one strategy which governments followed to supercharge the Australian economy. But there was another strategy as well, which was cheap public energy—wonderful government owned public assets providing cheap energy to again keep the cost of living down, to keep that pressure off wages. That then helped business. Of course, in manufacturing, the cost of energy is such a vital part of that manufacturing cost that it helped keep that cost down for business as well. In Western Australia, it is the Chichester Solar Gas Hybrid Project—a loan of up to $90 million to displace 100 million litres of diesel generation annually from the Pilbara. This is a way of not only getting more energy into our system but providing it in a cleaner way.

Finally, I'd just say that there are many examples here, whether it's critical minerals, whether it's the future made in Australia, whether it's agriculture—this NAIF forms an essential part of the government's broader economic strategy and meets those broader economic goals. The idea that it continues to 2036 and the idea that its accountability measures are strengthened—I think it's going to give it the longevity that it so desperately needs and create the opportunities which are so abundantly clear. I commend the bill to the House.

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