The Albanese Government’s bill to deliver one of the largest peacetime investments in Australian industry and Australian manufacturing has passed the House of Representatives.
During the launch of the National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) Corporation Bill in the House of Representatives in Canberra, the Minister for Industry, Science and Manufacturing Ed Husic said the Fund would help create secure, high-paying jobs for workers across the country, including in the regions, outer suburbs and remote communities.
The NRF will invest $15bn across priority areas of the economy including renewables and low emissions technologies, medical science, transport, value-adding in resources, value-adding in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, defence capability and enabling technologies.
“The National Reconstruction Fund is a nation-building, transformational investment to help deliver a better future,” said Minister Husic. “I look forward to working constructively across the Senate to deliver the National Reconstruction Fund for Australians.”
The Assistant Trade and Manufacturing Minister Tim Ayres appeared on Sky News on later on Thursday, to explain the impact of this legislation. Speaking to host Laura Jayes, he said, “It’s going to give us the capacity to deal with the industrial and energy challenges of the future. Actually, we’ve got to have a high-tech, highly industrialised, more electrification future to support those heavy industries. Australia has got to be big in heavy industries, we’ve got to be big in steel, big in aluminium, big in chemical manufacturing, big in fertiliser, big in cement. All those industries that are captured under the safeguards mechanism.”
Minister Ayres went on to say these measures were cornerstone investments in Australia’s future. “And the National Reconstruction Fund provides the kind of advanced manufacturing capability and shifting us up the value chain in areas like mining. Some people in the community talk down Australian mining. We have enormous capacity in mining in this country to produce all the metallurgical products. But not only do that, it’s the feed in inputs in terms of mining technology, it’s the outputs in terms of lifting our position in the value chain so that we’re making the electric batteries, for example, of the future that the world really needs.”
It will also help address the inflation challenge in the economy by reducing our dependence on broken supply chains.
“The Albanese Labor Government wants to see more things made here in Australia which also means more jobs for Australians and that’s what the National Reconstruction Fund will deliver,” Finance Minister Katie Gallagher said. “Right now we have a unique opportunity to diversify and transform our economy and we don’t want to miss it,” the Minister said.
Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic said the NRF will rebuild Australia’s industrial capability and support long-term sustainable economic growth. The NRF will be administered at arm’s length to the Government by an independent board making independent investment decisions.