MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator LAMBIE (Tasmania) (17:35): Nine years ago, when Sanjeev Gupta took over Whyalla steelworks, there were celebrations all round. The people of Whyalla even gave him a parade and called him the 'saviour' of our steel industry. Gupta told South Australians that Whyalla would produce green steel, with a long-term goal for a megaplant.

Gupta made a lot of promises to the people in George Town too, in Tasmania, where he bought the LIBERTY Bell Bay manganese smelter. He promised billions in investment and a secure future for the plant and its workers. Less than five years later, LIBERTY Bell Bay has closed and taken 217 secure jobs with it—a gut punch for the people of George Town.

Gupta made promises of a great future everywhere he went, and he's left those workers and communities shattered. There's no praise for him now at Whyalla steelworks, LIBERTY Bell Bay or Tahmoor coalmine. According to Paul Barry's new book, The Big Steal, Gupta's scam worked like this: buy a run-down steelworks, aluminium smelter or power station in a town heavily dependent on it; and promise to invest millions and turn it into a modern, environmentally friendly asset.

But it was all rubbish, because Gupta's money was all borrowed. One day, in August 2024, Gupta splashed out $12.5 million for a waterfront apartment on Sydney's Finger Wharf. At that very moment, in Whyalla, steelworkers were working under intense heat to restart the ageing blast furnace that Gupta had promised to replace and traders in the town were trying to extract the millions of dollars he owed them.

As Barry says in his book, everybody wanted to believe Gupta, but nobody did their due diligence, including Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board. Again, where was Gupta's money coming from? Had this bloke pulled off a miracle anywhere else?

Paul Barry says that at least $1 billion was siphoned off by Gupta from Australian businesses in Whyalla, in South Australia; Bell Bay, in Tasmania; and Tahmoor, in New South Wales. Tasmania has some experience with dodgy decisions made by the Foreign Investment Review Board. Not only is their due diligence clearly lacking; when they apply conditions, they can't actually enforce them.

If the government wants its Future Made in Australia policy to work, fixing the Foreign Investment Review Board should be its top priority. While they're at it, they might want to address the fact that the government have no strategic plan for Australian industry. What do we need onshore, how much do we need, what have we got, and what is the Department of Industry, Science and Resources actually doing?

I raised my concerns about Whyalla and Bell Bay repeatedly with state and federal governments. I wrote to ASIC, whose position in March 2025 was this: ASIC is aware of the concerns regarding the entity operating Whyalla steelworks and is actively monitoring the situation. Great—still monitoring, are you?

At the time of the federal government's intervention in Whyalla, the steelworks was $1.3 billion in debt and it was losing 1.3 million bucks a day. It looks to me like the regulator, once again, was asleep at the wheel. We have established a model where the federal government only gets involved at the point of crisis—intervention that is much too little, much too late.

The National Reconstruction Fund has eight potential focus areas, which include 'alumina and aluminium' and 'iron and steel'. Why are these potential areas? Why aren't they essential areas?

We can't have a future made in Australia unless we have steel, manganese and aluminium. This Australian government has to stop playing catch-up. We need a 20-year plan, we need the investment and we need it now.

And, in cases like Whyalla and LIBERTY Bell Bay, the government must recognise their national importance and take a stake in them. Stop handing out money all the time. Get something back.

Become private investors. I don't care. Goodness me!

You can't keep putting money in. If you had known what we did in Whyalla—we could see this going down the drain. It was all happening.

We all knew this well over 12 months ago. Otherwise, our future will be at the mercy of ships hoping to make it through waters threatened by Iran, the Houthi rebels, China, America or whatever militant takes the stage tomorrow.