Consideration in Detail: industry appropriations

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell—Manager of Opposition Business) (18:05): I rise today to speak to the industry appropriations. Clearly, the government's announcement today of the bailout of Glencore shows its ongoing instinct to continue using the taxpayer's balance sheet to bail out companies across Australia that are struggling to keep their operations open in many important sectors like smelting, manufacturing and heavy industry. The problem with this approach is that it isn't the last of the bailouts that the government will have to do. They have already committed billions of dollars for Whyalla, there have been hundreds of millions of dollars for Nyrstar, and today there is $600 million for Glencore. The Prime Minister outlined today in the House that that's 600 direct jobs. By any analysis, that is $1 million per job. That's an expensive bailout.

What the government is failing to do, through its programs in the industry portfolio, is outline its plan to reduce costs for important industry players in Australia. The cost structures are what is driving the process. And it hasn't stopped with Glencore. Other companies, we now know, have their hands out, saying to government, 'We need large amounts of taxpayer money to continue our operations in Australia.' We ask: why is the government ignoring industry's No. 1 concern? The No. 1 reported concern over a long time now has been and continues to be energy pricing for industrial and manufacturing users in Australia. That's the No. 1 concern. If they cannot solve their cost-structure problem with energy, they will not be able to compete.

Then there are considerations like the tax settings in Australia, the regulatory settings, the cost of doing business in Australia. We won't talk today about the industrial framework—I'm sure that will be talked about at another time—but we have the world's highest wages and we have high costs in other areas. We need competitive areas as well so that businesses and their operations can compete in Australia. That's what's required. Energy used to be our competitive advantage. The government, by not addressing domestic gas reserves and competitive energy pricing for industry, is causing the ongoing need for companies to come to government.

Of course, we understand there are world factors. The government will talk about world factors and say, 'There are state actors manipulating particular metals.' Well, sure, that may happen, and it may come about, but we can only control what we can control here domestically, and what we can control are things like energy pricing, availability, affordability and reliability. What we can control is our cost structures here that allow industry to compete against things like state-sponsored manipulation of different metals and other markets.

While we accept the government has to bail out companies, the numbers are getting staggering in terms of money and value proposition. And, as many people have pointed out, the corporations behind many of these operations are highly profitable corporations internationally. They're paying large dividends. There is a grave responsibility that comes when the government hands out this much taxpayer money to highly profitable corporations, and that responsibly must be a return for the Australian people. So we ask the government to outline what they are actually going to do. Why are they ignoring industry's continuing advice that energy pricing is their No. 1 concern? What is their actual plan for industry to make them compete better so that we don't have to use taxpayer money to bail them out? One million dollars per job today is a very expensive bailout from the taxpayer.

In other areas, the government continues to repurpose the money in the National Reconstruction Fund. We ask the government: how can the National Reconstruction Fund meet its charter or mission given to it in legislation if the minister takes $5 billion out of it for its climate target program? That wasn't the purpose of the money in the National Reconstruction Fund. And it's not the first time the fund has been raided, directed, changed or modified. How will the National Reconstruction Fund do its job when $5 billion of its mandate is removed by the minister and allocated elsewhere?

Clearly Labor has no plan. Clearly, when we look at the Future Made in Australia program, we're now seeing not only the traditional industries like aluminium smelters needing bailouts and all of the things we're seeing in the matters I spoke about but also, as we saw recently, advanced manufacturers, like lithium ion battery manufacturers with government handouts, going into receivership. We say to the government: where are the new green jobs if we cannot manufacture advanced lithium ion batteries and have those companies succeed? We're paying out both ways. We're paying out with the collapse of our industry but also with the bailouts. The government needs to have a plan for cheaper operations in Australia, and we ask the government: what is that plan?