Future Made in Australia legislation won’t pass until next month at the earliest after the Greens flagged multiple issues with the government’s bills and warned of an “election slush fund for more coal and gas”.
Support from the minor party is needed for the Albanese government to pass two bills through the Senate that would establish the framework for pumping tens of billions of dollars into industry, after the Opposition ruled out its vote earlier this week.
The Greens say its support will hinge on assurances the public investment won’t go to coal and gas projects or infrastructure, more public benefits from the incentives, ensuring domestic supply from the industries and First Nations consultation.
Greens leader Adam Bandt on Wednesday told Parliament the party supports government intervention to shape industries and ensure lasting benefits flow to communities.
But he wants clever policy design to secure more public benefits more from a “potential mining boom 2.0” driven by critical minerals and ensure fossil fuel projects won’t be part of a Future Made in Australia (FMiA).
“What we don’t support, and are concerned about, is legislation that is about creating an election slush fund for more coal and gas,” Mr Bandt said.
“There’s a real question mark over this legislation, because what we’re seeing, at the same time as the government says it wants a future made in Australia, is that it wants a future for coal and gas past 2050.”
The Greens expressed similar concerns last year with government legislation for the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund (NRF), which will provide equity investments and loans to individual manufacturing companies through an independent corporation.
The government eventually backed amendments to NRF legislation that now require the corporation administering it to give clear regard to emissions reduction targets and the impact of its investments on First Nations Australians.
But Mr Bandt on Wednesday warned the expanded role and funding of Export Finance Australia to provide FMiA investments is concerning, because its minister can direct some of its transactions from the National Interest Account.
“It’s not an independent statutory authority that’s got its own mandate; it’s something where cabinet, or ministers, can have a say. We fear that we’re seeing a big pile of money going into a government election slush fund for more coal and gas.”
He also flagged the need for Australian owned government corporations in the industries receiving the support like critical minerals and green hydrogen to capture benefits long term like other nations did with their resources booms.
The Greens also want domestic supplies protected to avoid a repeat of the natural gas market that has seen firms claim a domestic supply shortage while exporting vast amounts overseas.
“If you hand it all over to big corporations and let them send the resources offshore together with all the profits and put no restrictions around it, then you’re setting yourself up for exactly the same situation in 10 or 20 years. It will be robbing the Australian people,” Mr Bandt said.
A fourth concern is something that Mr Bandt says is not in the bill.
“That’s an answer about what happens with First Nations owners under whose land many of these minerals sit. We’ve seen First Nations people claim, rightly, that they have a claim to this and a right to be involved in what happens,” he told Parliament.
“It’s not just about, as the Prime Minister’s been saying, that First Nations people can go and work for Rio Tinto. It’s about what rights the First Nations people, whose sovereignty has never been ceded, have over this country.”
The party is reserving its position on the FMiA bills until the Senate tables its report on them in early September.
Demands from independents in the Senate are less clear, but their support will also be crucial after the major parties were far apart in debate this week.
Debate on the FMiA legislation entered its third day on Thursday.
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