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Fuelling the Future

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One Nation supports the bill to extend the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) decision-making window to June 2036, putting it on a stronger operational footing to help cut through bureaucratic red tape.

While we support northern development, we strongly oppose the inclusion of net-zero transition goals and special-treatment identity politics in the NAIF investment mandate.

One Nation advocates for equal rights for all Australians without special racial categories, proposing direct grants to local and Indigenous councils backed by proper Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) accountability.

We believe taxpayer funds should not back net-zero measures; projects like wind, solar, or batteries must stand on their own financial merits without government subsidies.

We champion critical infrastructure to unlock real wealth, including the Great Australian Infrastructure Network (GAIN) transcontinental railway, major water and dam projects and regional transport links.

I moved an amendment to ensure NAIF prioritises productive economic growth, directly finances extraction of coal and natural gas and explicitly blocks funding for net-zero measures, which was defeated by Labor, Greens and Teals.

We need to rebuild our country, cut out the bureaucratic and ideological interference, and leave a legacy of wealth, abundance, and opportunity for all Australians.

Transcript

The north of Australia is Australia’s future. One Nation supports the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment Bill 2026. The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, commonly known as NAIF, was established as a Commonwealth corporate entity in 2016 with bipartisan support. It was tasked with a $5 billion financing mandate to drive a 10-year mission to provide economic and social growth across northern Australia through the provision of concessional loans and financial support to private and public infrastructure projects. The NAIF has been upgraded, amended and fiddled with in 2018, 2021 and now 2026. Hopefully this bill is third time lucky. 

Since 2016, NAIF has handed out over $3 billion of the original $5 billion, with a total of $4.5 billion committed. The government has extended the pool to $7 billion. This bill extends the investment decision-making ability for the NAIF from June 2026 to June 2036. It adds additional requirements for the NAIF to report to the minister if there’s any deviation in compliance with their investment mandate. It implements the joint ministerial oversight model, which will see increased joint responsibilities for NAIF board appointments between the Minister for Northern Australia and the Minister for Finance. It establishes statutory reviews every five years. It requires NAIF to align with existing provisions in the legislation of other Commonwealth investment vehicles. In short, this bill puts NAIF on a stronger footing to carry out their mandate. 

It is, though, the mandate that One Nation objects to. The Albanese government changed the mandate in 2026 to include economic development in the north—that’s fair enough—and alleviating social or economic disadvantage in northern communities—fair enough. However, the mandate also included improving First Nations outcomes and achieving Australia’s net zero transition goals. 

One Nation’s policy is to improve outcomes for Aboriginal communities through improving all communities right across the Top End. To One Nation, it doesn’t matter if a community is Aboriginal or white or any colour in between. We care about Australians equally. We will advance policy based on equal rights for all—special rights for none. Our policy is to provide grants directly to local government, including Aboriginal councils across northern Australia, so that ANAO, the Australian National Audit Office, can audit where the money goes and what benefit the community derive from that money. Accountability in the Aboriginal industry—now there’s a concept. 

As for making NAIF about net zero, that’s not happening under a One Nation government. We will require NAIF to support any project which represents value for money for the taxpayers while meeting a real need. If that’s wind or solar or a big battery then so be it, but the numbers must add up without taxpayer money. We don’t propose to change the investment mandate other than to take the woke back out. 

Let me give you some examples of how Australia will restore wealth, prosperity and opportunity for all who are here. These are not One Nation projects. There’s no taking credit here. It’s about building the nation from the Albanese government, state governments and private industry for the good of our whole nation. Funding for these projects is provided through private financiers, with the possibility of a public-private partnership to ensure Australia’s interests are looked after. NAIF is required in the early stage to show the government is serious about investment. 

For too long, major projects have been held up through bureaucratic and political indecision, sometimes caused by environmental laws, but mostly just incompetence. This has led to trust issues between investors and the government. This is not a reflection on the Albanese government per se; this problem has been going on under successive Liberal, National and Labor governments for 20 years, which is why the NAIF is essential to providing early-stage funding and guiding these projects through the bureaucratic jungle expeditiously. After all, if the Albanese government is going to flood Australia with new arrivals as it is, we must generate new wealth to share with them, or else everyone goes backwards, which is what is happening right now. 

Projects One Nation will be strongly supporting include the great Australian infrastructure network, GAIN, which involves a railroad crossing across northern Australia, linking iron ore projects in Western Australia with Queensland metalliferous coal in the Bowen Basin. Steel mills will be located at each end to provide sovereign capacity in steel and steel by-products, including cement, fertiliser and ammonia, which is the material from which pharmaceuticals are made. This development will use water from Lake Argyle in Western Australia and from a new weir where the Urannah dam was to be located. 

The railway will include a multifunction corridor bringing town water, electricity and an internet backbone connection. The internet connection is of utmost importance for national security. While the old offshore copper connection between Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth has been upgraded, it’s not capable of carrying Australia’s internet traffic. I’ll just say that. It’s not capable, as it is, of carrying Australia’s international traffic. It needs duplication. For a signal to get from Brisbane to Perth, it must travel via a jump-off point in Brisbane up to Asia, often as far as China, then back down again to Perth. What could possibly go wrong with that? This proposal has had a long history going back more than 100 years. The current proponents have assembled an impressive team, capitalised their project sponsor vehicle and have already exceeded any development conducted in the past through previous sponsors using all new and unencumbered intellectual property—all new on a proven concept. 

Project sponsors have advanced proposals to complete Inland Rail from Parkes in New South Wales to the Port of Gladstone, using what’s been called the forestry route. A second proponent is advocating a route due north from Goondiwindi via Moonie to Dalby and on to the Port of Gladstone, where a major container handling facility is currently out to tender. I look forward to the Crisafulli government fast-tracking this amazing proposal to take Australia’s container handling into the 21st century. 

One Nation will also build the Big Rocks Weir, Emu Swamp Dam and the Hughenden irrigation project, and complete the reconstruction of Paradise Dam. There are other projects under development. Once again, these are not One Nation projects. We are promoting them and would be happy to promote any other project that will restore wealth and abundance for all. The NAIF has an important role to play in that process. We need to rebuild our country and leave a legacy for our children and for the descendants of all in Australia right now. We need to restore Australia and make it magnificent again. I move: 

At the end of the motion, add “, but the Senate is of the opinion that: 

(a) the Investment Mandate for the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility must prioritise productive infrastructure which will grow the Australian economy and provide breadwinner jobs for everyday Australians; 

(b) financial assistance should be encouraged under the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Act 2016 for measures which: 

(i) directly finance the extraction of coal or natural gas, 

(ii) directly finance the construction of pipeline infrastructure, including for the extraction of natural gas, and 

(iii) directly finance the mining of natural resources, including coal; and 

(c) financial assistance must not be provided for net zero measures”. 

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Tearing Up Competition and Consumer Rules

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The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 gives the ACCC and the minister wide ranging power to exempt large corporations from anticompetitive and fair trading laws during crises like the Iranian oil shock.

It lets the government “tear up the rulebook” by rubberstamping illegal anticompetitive behaviour through a Ministerial instrument.

Using the Iranian fuel crisis as an example, major fuel importers deliberately withheld fuel from the spot market to inflate prices, hurting independent regional stations and everyday consumers while securing windfall profits.

The Labor government is backdating the bill to retroactively cover up corporate profiteering, which is being done to push high fuel prices and artificially boost lagging electric vehicle (EV) sales to advance its Net Zero agenda.

The Albanese Government is turning out to be the most totalitarian government in Australian history.

Transcript

This is not a matter of urgency; to the contrary, it’s a matter for considered scrutiny. Let me explain. The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 provides the ACCC with significant new powers. These powers create a new framework for actions that can be taken in exceptional circumstances such as the Iranian oil shock. These powers allow the ACCC to exempt big business from normal fair trading and anticompetitive laws—exempt. This allows big business, once an exceptional circumstance has been declared, to do whatever they like. The framework is wider than fuel; it can be used for anything the minister decides to use it for. This otherwise illegal behaviour will then be simply rubberstamped in the minister’s office using a legislative instrument that cannot be disallowed. It won’t even come before parliament. The ACCC already has the power to allow uncompetitive behaviour in the national interest—it already has the power, in the national interest. This legislation clarifies those rules but little more. I note the proposed amendment from the crossbench which changes that provision to make these legislative instruments disallowable in the parliament. One Nation will be supporting that amendment, as the government should. 

This bill is, in effect, the government granting itself the power to tear up the rulebook to allow large corporations to use their market power to screw the competition, expand their market share and leverage that market share to make more profit at the consumers’ expense. There is a real example of this occurring. In the early days of the Iranian fuel disruption, Australia’s fuel importers—major importers of fuel—despite having full storage tanks, withheld from the spot market. The major importers of fuel deliberately withheld fuel from the spot market, despite having full storage tanks. This is the market into which fuel importers and refiners supply their fuel once their own supply contracts have been met. This is where the smaller independent petrol stations, especially in rural and regional Australia, get their fuel. In the first weeks of the Iranian oil crisis, petrol went above $2.50 a litre—we all remember that—and diesel went over $3 a litre. The increase in the oil price did not justify those retail prices, which were high because of price gouging and manipulation. We know what these large multinational companies did. They held their supply back from the spot market to inflate the retail price, even for fuel which was already in the supply system at the old price. This delivered windfall profits to multinational oil companies—for doing nothing except colluding. 

Labor is now advancing this bill with a clause backdating the bill to the start of the crisis to cover up this profiteering. Labor is covering up this profiteering. Why would the Albanese Labor government excuse foreign multinational fuel companies for profiting at the expense of everyday Australians? The answer is simple: to sell electric vehicles, whose sales had been languishing. Remember all those stories about people rushing out to buy EVs because petrol was so dear? How evil is that? With all the financial hardship in the bush and the regions and the suburbs which resulted from big oil profiteering, the government is using this bill to cover it up to advance its net zero agenda—yet another hidden cost of the net zero agenda. This Labor Party does not give a damn about everyday Australians; it does not care at all. And now they’re helping companies cover it up. If the Greens support this bill, they will be supporting foreign multinational corporations price gouging everyday Australians. I’ll say that again to the Greens. If the Greens support this bill, they will be supporting foreign multinational corporations price gouging everyday Australians. 

I note the amendment from the Nationals to remove the retrospective nature of the cover-up in this bill. One Nation will support that amendment. 

Competition law exists for a reason. It protects consumers and small business. It stops large players from coordinating in ways that damage competition. Any exemption from competition law needs to be treated very seriously, because it’s the people who pay. We can’t normalise anticompetitive conduct. It will lead to more and more exceptions, less and less consumer protection, higher and higher prices, and weaker and weaker service. Clearly, when Labor talks about consumer protections, they don’t really mean it. I’m just checking; this is still a Labor government, isn’t it? Is that right? 

One Nation is the party of everyday Australians now. One Nation wants this bill to go to a committee inquiry so everyone can have their say, and, from that, a fairer bill will have emerged. We want the public to have their input, yet here we are. Once again this Labor government is talking about ramming through without proper debate, without transparency, legislation which contains significant provisions. 

In 2019 the then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, frequently criticised the coalition for lacking transparency in key legislation and vowed Labor would operate differently, including better parliamentary scrutiny. This bill is not getting committee scrutiny. We want better parliamentary scrutiny, as Anthony Albanese sought back in 2019. In his victory speech in 2022, Prime Minister Albanese promised to end secrecy, to lead with integrity and to treat the public with respect, framing his win as voters choosing accountable government versus the previous cult of secrecy. He repeatedly claims a mandate with just 34 per cent of the vote—one-third of the vote. That’s why he’s got no accountability now. Where is that accountability? Where is the transparency now? Where is the parliamentary scrutiny now? Unless all the substantive amendments presented to the Senate are passed, One Nation will oppose this legislation. 

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Canberra, Wake Up!

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Fuel costs are skyrocketing!

When harvest fuel bills double and take weeks to recoup from supermarkets, family farms simply can’t finance the food on our tables.

If Canberra keeps treating our fuel sovereignty like someone else’s problem, store shelves will empty fast.

Our food producers are already feeling the heat.

Government needs to step up and start looking after Australia.

Transcript

Yesterday, I met with Johanna Brighenti from NSW Farmers and member organisations across horticultural and meat industries. They raised issues caused by the Albanese government’s fuel crisis that are terrifying. The cost to get produce to market is going up by between 25 per cent and 75 per cent because of increased fuel costs.

Farmers and truckers using diesel are only getting 30 per cent of their fuel order. This is making Australian produce unaffordable. After the drought years, family farmers have nothing left to get through this.

It’s even worse for farmers in the middle of a harvest. One farmer saw their harvest fuel costs double, from $15,000 to $30,000 a week. Fuel bills have to be settled in 14 days. Supermarkets pay two months. Farmers can no longer afford to finance their harvest, and food will not get to supermarkets.

If the Canberra bubble think that this is someone else’s problem and that they need do nothing about it, I can assure you it’s going to get very real very quickly. For food producers it is already real. 

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