Labor believes that the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility needs better ministerial oversight to ensure that the high governance and management standards the community expect are enforced.

A Shorten Labor Government will give Ministerial shareholding responsibility for the NAIF to both the Northern Australia and Finance Ministers.

The NAIF has been set up in a way that leaves it without rigorous oversight or appropriate governance structures in place.

Our change will align the NAIF more closely with the governance and objectives of other investment funds like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and bring Finance’s experience and expertise to bear in the oversight and operation of the NAIF.

After more than two and a half years in operation, Turnbull’s NAIF has failed to deliver the jobs and infrastructure the Conservatives promised for the North.

The NAIF isn’t working.

There are legitimate concerns within the community about the governance and operation of the NAIF.

Labor has identified serious issues with how the NAIF is run, such as:

• Unexplained conflicts of interest held by NAIF board members,
• Issues with a lack of transparency and a refusal to respond to FOIs,
• Poor governance measures,
• Only a third of NAIF staff are actually based in Northern Australia.

Unlike the Conservatives, Labor is serious about jobs in Northern Australia, which is why we’ve also committed to establishing the $1 billion Northern Australia Tourism Infrastructure Fund to provide financing and concessional loans to build new tourism infrastructure.