It’s still another week until parliament in Canberra comes back from its long winter break, which makes this a great time to revisit something that was rushed through the Senate with very little scrutiny on the last day of the last session, back in June.
The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, or NAIF, was originally established in 2016, by the Liberal-National coalition government, as a way of funding industrial projects in Northern Australia which couldn’t stand on their own as commercial propositions, but required taxpayer’s support. White elephants anyone?
Vulnerable to pork-barrelling on an epic scale, the NAIF was described by then-Labor leader Bill Shorten as an ‘abject failure’ in 2019. Last month, the Albanese Government boosted its budget from five to seven billion dollars.
Zali Steggall and the Greens attempted to modify the 2023 bill to increase the NAIF’s budget, by ruling out NAIF support for fossil fuel infrastructure projects, but this was over-ruled by the major parties, in spite of Labor’s suggestion that one of the supposed reasons for the NAIF’s existence, these days, is that Northern Australia is the geographic frontline for the worsening climate emergency.
New NAIF?
Labor says the NAIF has changed, and that the organisation is looking beyond the usual LNP dream projects of mines and dams to instead help Indigenous people and invest in renewable energy projects.
The NAIF’s jurisdiction has grown under the current government, and now includes Indian Ocean territories and everywhere else north of the Tropic of Capricorn, as well as parts south, under special circumstances.
Madeleine King, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, stood in the House in June and talked about how the NAIF was helping pay for student accommodation in Townsville, the Batchelor solar farm in the NT and other economic infrastructure ‘to benefit Indigenous persons’, with only one line of her long speech getting to the main reason for the NAIF’s existence, which remains ‘to invest in critical minerals projects’.
Like each of her predecessors in the role, from whichever party, Minister King has proven herself to be a loyal friend of the fossil fuel industries, particularly gas, and particularly in Northern Australia.
With gas prices surging to historic highs due to the war in Ukraine, it’s hard to understand how the Albanese Government can justify financially supporting the exploitation of the Beetaloo Basin and the Middle Arm gas export terminal, even without considering the environmental aspects, but to do anything else would apparently be electoral suicide.
ALP hypocrisy
Warringah MP Zali Steggall says that without safeguards, the NAIF risks being used primarily to prop up and invest in further fossil fuel infrastructure, which will lead to Australia drifting further from its climate commitments in Paris.
‘The NAIF should remain independent,’ she said. ‘It should invest only in clean technologies that are actually for the future of northern Australia.
‘Anything else would be irresponsible and would be public money wasted,’ said Ms Steggall.
When the NAIF budget bill came to the Senate, the Greens suggested similar amendments, seeking to ban the use of the NAIF to fund the extraction of coal or gas, build gas pipelines, or directly finance the logging of native forests.
All of these suggestions were over-ruled by the major parties, finding only 13 votes in support and 29 against. The intentions of the government for the NAIF could not be clearer.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
