Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry
Thanks Mark, for the introduction.
And for the opportunity to address this forum in Sydney once again, a city known for its thriving financial services industry.
A city full of possibility and potential as the epicentre of investment in Asia.
And on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people, whose elders, customs and culture we acknowledge.
Thanks also for the candid chat over dinner last night, sharing the stage with my New South Wales counterpart Daniel Mookhey.
There are too many familiar faces here to mention everyone individually, but let me make a couple of exceptions who have flown a long way to be here.
Ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd.
And our Consul‑General in New York, Heather Ridout, whose contribution to this forum and the investment community is unmatched.
Kevin, Heather – and everyone here today – thank you.
I’m here to talk about Australia as a more attractive investment destination in a new world of uncertainty.
To help set the scene, I want to take you back to 2005 and a lecture hall in Virginia.
There, Ben Bernanke gave a speech called The Global Savings Glut and the US Current Account Deficit.
At the time, America was running a huge current account deficit with China, the oil exporters were piling up reserves, and long‑term interest rates were low even as the Fed raised the Federal Funds rate.
Bernanke’s explanation was simple but now profound:
The world had too much saving and too little investment.
That abundance of savings from China, the petrostates, Germany and parts of East Asia made it easy for countries like ours to attract investment.
For a generation, money was cheap and it was plentiful.
But 4 shocks in 15 years have reshaped the world economy – driving up the cost of capital and redrawing the global investment map.
When Bernanke spoke in 2005, global savings stood at around 25 per cent of GDP.
Today, it’s near the lowest level in more than forty years at around 22 per cent.
So, in a global economy of around $169 trillion, that’s about $8 trillion less than if the world was still saving at mid‑2000s levels.
There are a few explanations.
Ageing populations mean households are increasingly drawing down savings rather than building them up.
Quantitative easing gave way to quantitative tightening.
China’s economy is maturing, it’s facing bigger structural headwinds, and it isn’t in the position to be the global provider of capital it was 2 decades ago.
But what I also want to point to today is how the shifts in geopolitics, in energy, and in technology, have caused a massive surge in investment demand.
Bond issuance in advanced economies in 2024 reached US$16 trillion.
It’s now equivalent to about a quarter of annual output from advanced economies, when it was a fifth just 2 years before that.
The result is that the supply side of capital is tightening just as the demand side is exploding.
What was once a global savings glut has become an intense global contest for capital.
And when secured, that capital isn’t just looking for any home.
It’s looking for ways to leverage the other big structural shifts occurring in our economies and societies.
From IT to AI; from hydrocarbons to renewables; from globalisation to fragmentation; from younger to older; and the rapid growth in services.
We can see that playing out in markets across the board – from equities to bonds, and currencies to commodities.
Since I last spoke to you in June 2024:
Private AI capex is up 25 per cent globally. And spending on AI is forecast to surpass US$1 trillion by 2029.
Computer chip giant NVIDIA’s market cap has grown by about US$2 trillion, and crossed US$5 trillion yesterday.
That’s roughly equivalent to adding an entire year of output of Australia’s Eastern states to its valuation – an astonishing amount.
In June last year, the price of an ounce of gold was just under half what it is today and the VIX volatility index was about three‑quarters of what it is today.
The US average tariff rate on imports was under 3 per cent, now it is around 7 times that.
Last June, the yield on 30‑year US bonds was 20 basis points below the 2‑year yield, now it is around 110 basis points higher – the largest gap in almost 4 years.
This data gives a good sense of the rapid and accelerating churn and change happening across markets and economies, which is the main backdrop for today’s discussion.
And it’s also what makes the work we’re doing together on investment so important and so urgent.
We’ve made a lot of progress together already, but as the competition for capital intensifies we must do even more.
To the investors here let me make this really clear:
Our vision is for Australia to be the destination where global investment flows first and grows fastest.
When you reconsider and redeploy the capital you manage, our objective is for Australia to be the most obvious and most compelling place to put it to work.
When you run the numbers – when you test risk, return and reliability – our goal is for Australia to be at the top of your models.
We don’t assume investment will find us by default.
But we do know so much of this churn and change in the world plays to Australia’s strengths.
Cleaner and cheaper energy.
More reliable supply chains for critical minerals.
Expertise and opportunities in digital infrastructure and AI.
When I met with investors in New York and Washington earlier this month – people who collectively manage more than $27 trillion in assets – the message was consistent:
They see in Australia a rare combination of strong economic fundamentals, a highly‑skilled and adaptable workforce, policy stability, and close proximity to the fastest‑growing region in the world.
Australia offers reliable returns in an increasingly unreliable world.
This is not by chance, it’s by design.
Today, I want to run you through our strategy to build on these strengths.
I’ll start with 4 of our biggest competitive advantages –
And how they relate to our ambitious agenda on capital and investment.
The first advantage is our macro fundamentals.
Second, our energy and resources potential.
Third, our strengths in the digital economy and innovation.
And fourth, our geography and place in the world.
It starts with our fundamentals – a strong labour market and momentum in the private economy.
We’ve maintained the lowest average unemployment rate of any government in 50 years, with more than 1.1 million jobs created since mid‑2022.
We’ve overseen stronger jobs growth than any major advanced economy over that time.
And now, the private sector is once again taking its rightful place as the main driver of economic growth.
For 3 consecutive quarters, private growth has exceeded public growth. Market sector jobs are the primary driver of jobs growth in 2025 as a consequence.
In 2026, the IMF is forecasting Australia to have faster economic and employment growth than any of the G7.
All while having gross debt‑to‑GDP that is much less than half the average of those economies too.
These are some of the reasons Fitch re‑affirmed our AAA credit rating this week. Australia is one of only 9 countries to have a AAA credit rating from all 3 major rating agencies.
These strong fundamentals are bolstered by our advantages in energy and resources.
We are home to some of the world’s best solar and wind opportunities.
We also have the second largest reserves of lithium, the fourth largest reserves of manganese, and the sixth largest reserves of rare earths – materials essential to the AI and energy transformations.
These are compounding advantages, which deliver benefits that build across time and industries.
They also help underpin our third advantage, as a fast‑emerging digital hub in a region of digital innovators.
Let me quickly put this digital transformation in context.
In the past decade, investment in intellectual property, including software, data and AI has nearly doubled to about 19 per cent of all business investment in Australia.
We’re already among the top 5 markets for data‑centre capacity, and our researchers are working to build the world’s first fault‑tolerant quantum computer in Brisbane.
Our openness, energy potential and submarine cable network give us a central role in the Indo‑Pacific’s digital infrastructure.
These are just some examples of how our geography positions us to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of change.
We are a trading nation in the world’s fastest‑growing region.
In 1960 only 18 per cent of global GDP was within 10,000 km of Australia. In 2008, it was 30 per cent.
Today it’s more than 36 per cent.
More than three‑quarters of our trade is now with the Indo‑Pacific, and more than half of our outward and inward investment flows are within the region.
Our agenda across capital and investment is about turning these national advantages into the drivers of Australia’s next generation of growth.
An agenda which helps attract and deploy more capital to build a more modern, more resilient and more productive economy.
One that is anchored by strong fundamentals, powered by cleaner and cheaper energy, turbocharged by digital innovation, and positioned at the heart of the world’s fastest‑growing region.
We’ve already made really substantial progress.
In our first term we’ve worked with you to unlock capital for housing, renewables, and the industries of the future through our Future Made in Australia agenda.
Getting our fundamental investment settings right by strengthening and streamlining our foreign investment framework, overhauling our merger regime and through our Sustainable Finance Roadmap.
Driving investment in the net zero transformation, with production credits for hydrogen, processed critical minerals, green aluminium and low carbon liquid fuels –
We’re partnering with the United States to deliver a $13 billion pipeline of priority critical minerals projects –
Unlocking $73 billion in private investment through the Capacity Investment Scheme –
And using our financing facilities to help de‑risk and unlock private investment, including through the new Net Zero Fund.
Our investment in PsiQuantum, AI Adopt Centres and making AI a national priority is all about enabling more digital innovation.
And we’re deepening our ties in the region through our Southeast Asia Economic Strategy and engagements internationally –
Including creating 9 Investment Deal Teams linking Australian capital with Southeast Asian partners to accelerate two‑way investment.
You can already see progress in the data.
We had $3.8 trillion of direct and portfolio investment at the end of last year – a more than $300 billion net increase during the year.
Our foreign exchange market depth is at record highs.
The Australian dollar is the 7th most‑traded currency and average daily FX turnover increased by 34 per cent to US$201 billion per day in April 2025, up from US$150 billion in April 2022.
In the first 6 months of this year, Australia attracted around $30 billion in net equity inflows from overseas.
This is the largest six‑month net inflow in 5 years, driven by volatility in overseas markets increasing demand from international investors for Australian equities.
The investor community is helping us sustain and build on that momentum.
Investment was central to our Economic Reform Roundtable in August and we are working very hard to progress the major areas of consensus we achieved there.
We’re already:
Slashing 500 more nuisance tariffs, we’ve introduced legislation to unwind red tape, got our Investor Front Door pilot up and running, we’re starting a new round of consultation on the super performance test and finalising our AI plan.
There’s more work to come on making sure our Special Investment Vehicles are doing the job we need them to –
And we’re continuing to strengthen our strategic trade partnerships – with the Prime Minister sealing a really important critical minerals deal with President Trump just last week.
We’ve also very substantially strengthened and streamlined our foreign investment regime.
Since they were announced last year, our reforms have made the regime work better for investors, for our national interest and for our economy.
We are serious about attracting more global capital, and our reforms to give investors certainty while protecting Australia’s interests are an important part of that.
We’ve increased resourcing to assess investment proposals in critical sectors of the economy.
At the same time, low‑risk investments are also being decided much faster.
Our goal was to process 50 per cent of cases within 30 days from 1 January this year, and we’re making meaningful progress.
Treasury’s median processing time for approved commercial investment proposals is now around 29 days in the most recent quarterly data.
This is twice as fast compared to when we came to office.
These numbers will jump around a bit, but the data shows our foreign investment reforms are already making a substantial difference.
Complicated cases are being scrutinised appropriately and robustly, while those which are clearly in the national interest are being approved quickly.
This is good for our country and good for investors around the world, as we approach foreign investment in a stronger, more streamlined way.
There’s an appetite to do more to strengthen the regime where we need to and streamline it more where we can.
We heard that at our reform roundtable and have taken that feedback seriously.
We’re open to going further, which is why I’m releasing a new consultation paper for a second tranche of foreign investment reforms today.
Our goal is a FIRB regime that is much stronger where risks are high and much faster where risks are low.
To further streamline the framework, we will consult on a new automatic approvals process.
This would mean that low‑risk actions from trusted investors would require notification but not sign‑off, while retaining the power to review cases and call them in if we need to.
Plus, we’ll be looking to reduce reporting requirements, better manage approved investments and make sure more decisions are made by the statutory deadline.
We’re also looking to tighten our scrutiny of investments in sensitive sectors, strengthen enforcement powers and ensure non‑compliance is penalised.
And we’ll be consulting on a new enforceable undertakings power and conditions to make sure investment is in the national interest.
This will make the FIRB regime stronger and faster.
All of this work –
From getting our investment settings right and unlocking our clean‑energy potential, to driving digital capability and deepening our place in the region –
Is about turning Australia’s strengths into drivers of long‑term growth and delivering national returns.
Investment that delivers more well‑paid jobs, a broader and deeper industrial base, more innovation and a stronger, more dynamic and resilient economy.
The opportunities ahead of us won’t come automatically.
They’ll be earned through clear priorities, considered and methodical work, and close working relationships between government and investors like you.
Relationships that turn ambition into action.
That turn interest into final investment decisions.
And capital into lasting returns.
That’s what this forum is all about and why I’m so grateful for this opportunity.
And also why you’ll be joined today by a number of my ministerial colleagues who share our passion.
Chris Bowen in Climate Change and Energy.
Clare O’Neil in Housing, Homelessness and Cities.
Tim Ayres in Industry and Innovation, and Science.
Madeleine King in Resources sends her apologies, she is in Canada deepening our critical minerals partnerships with the G7 –
But Anthony Chisholm is here representing the Resources portfolio, as well as Regional Development, and Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
And Andrew Charlton in Science, Technology and the Digital Economy.
We all appreciate your interest and investment in Australia, the opportunity to work with you, and the chance to spend time with you today.