Future Made in Australia Bill 2024

The member for Cooper stood at the dispatch box and delivered a speech where she declared that the government is the party of working people. We on this side say that the government is the party of working poor people. Under this government, Australians feel poorer simply because they are. Prices are up by 10 per cent, and for working households prices are up over 18 per cent, and Australians know it. They can feel it in their hip pockets every time they go to the supermarket. Personal income taxes are up by 20 per cent, real wages for employees have collapsed by nine per cent, living standards have collapsed by eight per cent, household savings are down by 10 per cent, and a family with a typical mortgage of $750,000 is $35,000 worse off. Where are they getting their money from? That’s the question they’re asking. The Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 does nothing to alleviate the pressures on struggling families and small businesses. In fact, the big spending agenda is likely to keep inflation higher for longer.

I also particularly enjoyed the member for Adelaide’s contribution, where he seamlessly admitted that the great Liberal and Country League premier Sir Thomas Playford was an undeniable visionary for creating the manufacturing satellite city of Elizabeth in South Australia. I’ve spoken before in this place about my very special connection to Elizabeth and the manufacturing sector. It was where I was born and grew up for the first eight years of my life. There were three generations of Holden workers in my family. Both my brothers, my father and my grandfather—a couple of them got gold watches—were working at General Motors-Holden. My mother was an machinist—an award-winning machinist, I might say; she worked very hard—at Levi Strauss in Elizabeth. It was the vision of Sir Thomas Playford to set up Elizabeth as a satellite city for manufacturing. with affordable houses through the South Australian Housing Trust, that gave me my start in life and gave my family the opportunity to save a little bit of money—to save that deposit for a house. They bought a small house in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. I remember it was about $25,000 back then. They moved from social housing—from the Housing Trust commission home—into their own home, and that certainly helped my education opportunities as a young person. It’s because of that background that I really understand the significance of manufacturing.

Also, in my current home—as a Queenslander for almost 30 years and a proud Gold Coaster for 23 years—the local statistics for manufacturing on the Gold Coast from June 2023 tell us that it has been growing at a pace of 1.1 per cent per year for the last 10 years, which is actually higher than the Queensland figure and, indeed, the national figure. The manufacturing sector on the Gold Coast is worth $3.6 billion in exports for Gold Coast businesses. That’s $132,018 of productivity per worker, with a total output of—wait for it—a whopping $9.2 billion through sectors such as food, metals, transport, machinery, non-metallic mineral product, beverages and others like, of course, boat-building, of which we are so proud on the Gold Coast. That’s just a local snapshot of how important manufacturing is to this country.

Of course, the coalition supports those manufacturers. But, speaking to this bill, the coalition will indeed oppose it, not because we oppose manufacturers, manufacturing or the jobs that they represent but because we oppose bad policy that has not been properly thought out. The role of the opposition is, indeed, to oppose bad policy. That’s what good oppositions do. So we are poking holes in the government’s legislation to make sure that Australians can see the light on the other side, and this bill has plenty of those holes.

The member for Wentworth, in her contribution from the crossbench, said, ‘The bill fails to deliver the framework needed for a renewables future,’ and she has brought forward a number of amendments that she thinks will improve the bill. She also outlined that the government should focus on tax reform and cutting red tape. I think we agree on that. I think they are very sensible measures. Perhaps she and all of those others on the crossbench will vote with the opposition on this bill, if they agree that it’s all spin and no substance. We’ll see after the speeches in the second reading debate.

This is another bad policy from the Labor government, which is out of its depth. It sounds like it’s saying all the right things, which Labor loves to do, with headlines like ‘national security’, ‘sovereign capability’, ‘clean energy’ et cetera. It’s saying all those things that it thinks it needs to say in order to stay in government. ‘A future made in Australia,’ it shouts from the rooftops. ‘More things made here,’ we hear being said. But we ask this government, whose wheels really are falling off at the moment: when will it focus on the right things for Australians right now? When will it focus on delivering all those promises it made before the last election—those promises that we’re yet to see materialise, like the promise of affordable, reliable energy? The government should be focused on flexible workplaces—less regulation, not more—and on an incentive based tax system, not billions of dollars on pie-in-the-sky policies.

The government needs to be focused on getting our country back on track and getting those basics right in the economy so that all Australians will benefit from lower inflation, lower grocery prices, lower energy prices and lower mortgage repayments. That’s the only way to get this country back on track, and this government simply is not focused on those areas. Their policies on energy, industrial relations and tax are all making Australia a less attractive place to do business, and the facts are very, very clear.

Business insolvencies are up. Productivity is down; it was less than 0.1 per cent in the last quarter. Businesses are struggling to keep their doors open. I know this because I’ve got about 32,000 of them in my electorate, on the Gold Coast. Hospitality providers are struggling at the moment. We had the Pacific Airshow last weekend, which reportedly brought 400,000 people to the beach in Surfers Paradise—it’s a big number, but that’s what was reported. Of course, all of the local businesses gobbled up all of that beautiful business that came to the Gold Coast, business that’s very, very important for our families on the Gold Coast.
Economist after economist has criticised this policy, and every day we hear more stories about dodgy processes, the lack of economic security and the double standards that apply to this program. The government won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis by throwing hard earned taxpayer money around, which is what they’re doing—$315 billion of extra money in the economy is keeping your interest payments higher. They’re not working with fiscal policy and monetary policy; they’re working against them.

The Prime Minister might want to pick winners, but Australian families will lose from Labor’s reckless spending and their bad policies, of which this, of course, is one. The Prime Minister has revealed his plan to spend even more money and make productivity worse, and that’s failed to gain any support from mainstream economists. With this policy, the government is taking from household budgets to bolster business balance sheets. This is not responsible economic management. I’ll take the scoffing from the other side. They think there’s something funny about this, but there’s not. People are hurting across the nation.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Ms BELL: They can’t pay their bills, Minister. In fact, this big spending agenda is likely to make inflation, as I said, worse. Just like households, governments need to manage their budgets and live within their means. The Albanese government has shown weak economic leadership.

These bills expand the role of Export Finance Australia and ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, and establish a national interest framework that retrospectively underpins the government’s Future Made in Australia policy. The accompanying omnibus bill expands Export Finance Australia’s remit to fund domestic industries and nominates the Minister for Finance as an additional responsible minister.

The omnibus bill also expands ARENA’s functions from purely R D and demonstration to the support of manufacturing, deployment and commercialisation. This legislation fundamentally changes the purpose, duties and roles of ARENA. ARENA has always been a research and development agency. This is clear in its remit, in the explanatory memorandum and the second reading speech. When in opposition, Labor opposed the expansion of that remit to cover sensible net-zero-related R D expenditure, including into carbon capture and storage and blue hydrogen. How times have changed. Now they are expanding that remit even further into deployment and manufacturing because it suits the interests of their donors. If ARENA is doing deployment, why is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation even needed? If these industries are commercially viable, why do they need government funding? Labor’s changes are still more insidious—

Mr Husic: Focus on detail.

Ms BELL: because the bill gives the Minister for Climate Change and Energy the ability to boost its funding at a stroke of a pen. That’s detail, Minister. No parliamentary oversight—that’s detail.

Mr Husic interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Dr Freelander): Order, Minister! The member is entitled to be heard in silence.

Ms BELL: No scrutiny, Minister—with just some delegated legislation, the government can roll up to $3.98 billion out the door in an election year. It’s a slush fund, plain and simple.

Australian taxpayers are already on the hook for Labor’s inflation, and you know it. Labor has spent $315 billion in new spending since the election. That’s how much they’ve spent. They’ve spent over $30,000 per Australian household. How is that not keeping inflation higher for longer under this irresponsible and recklessly spending government? It has fuelled inflation, and Australians ultimately pay for that. Australian families are already paying the price with 12 interest rate hikes, some of the most stubborn core inflation in the developed world and the higher taxes that come with it. You’re paying 20 per cent higher taxes under this government. Australian families just should not be paying that.

Now, don’t take it just from me or from others standing here on the coalition side; take it from Danielle Wood, the head of the Productivity Commission. The government’s key economic adviser, appointed by the Treasurer, has said:

If we are supporting industries that don’t have a long-term competitive advantage, that can be an ongoing cost.

It’s baked in. That is what that means. She said further:

It diverts resources, that’s workers and capital, away from other parts of the economy where they might generate high value uses.

We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on government subsidies, and that can be very effective in coming back for more.

She has also said:

Your infants grow up, they turn into very hungry teenagers and it’s kind of hard to turn off the tap.

When asked whether Future Made in Australia contained tax reform, Ms Wood explicitly said it is ‘not tax reform’. On alternative policies, including lowering the corporate tax rate, Ms Wood offered it would ‘make us more internationally competitive’.

The coalition’s alternative is that we must get back to economic basics. The coalition is working to ensure that Australia can play to its strengths. We’ll steer our nation out of our current domestic crisis. We’ll not just talk about the challenges of our time but meet them head on with action to carve out a more secure future for Australia. Most importantly, we’ll make the decisions that set up our nation for success for generations to come. It requires strong economic management, not slogans or handouts, with a plan to get back on track and back to economic basics.

First we’ll reign in inflationary spending, as I talked about. Second we’ll wind back Labor’s intervention and remove regulatory roadblocks, which are suffocating the economy and stopping businesses from getting ahead. We’ll condense approval processes and cut back on Labor’s red tape, which is killing mining, jobs and entrepreneurialism. Third we’ll remove the complexity and hostility of Labor’s IR agenda, which is putting unreasonable burdens on business. We’ll revert to the former coalition government’s simple definition of a casual worker and create certainty for our 2.5 million small businesses across the country, who are employers and who are being tied in knots by this government. Fourth we will provide lower, simpler and fairer taxes for all because Australians should keep more of what they earn. And that’s our line, not Labor’s. That’s what they do; they take a line and they own it. No, we are the party for small business. That’s us. We are the party for working Australians. Fifth we’ll deliver competition policy which gives consumers and small businesses a fair go, not lobbyists and big corporations. And sixth we’ll ensure Australians have more affordable and reliable energy.

Our economic plan, with its tried and tested principles, will restore competitiveness and rebuild economic confidence. The policies that we seek to implement are not just about the next election cycle. They’re not just about that election that we’re due within eight months. They are a foundation for forging a better Australia and a better future for all Australians, for small and family business in particular and for our country.