Anthony Albanese government pledges $2 billion green energy investment fund for Southeast Asia during cost of living crisis

Anthony Albanese is coming under fire after announcing a $2 billion green energy investment fund for Southeast Asia, while Australia is still in a devastating cost of living crisis.

While the Government presents the huge sum as an investment in Australia’s economic future by helping a huge trading partner grow, many see it as money better spent at home, rather than on green initiatives such as wind farms in abroad.

“How about we give some of that money to middle and lower class Australians?” one angry person wrote on social media.

“That $2 bill could be better spent cleaning up crime across northern Australia, Albo, and in Alice Springs in particular,” wrote another.

But the Prime Minister defended the move on Tuesday afternoon, saying the $2 billion will generate “new investment (and) jobs here in Australia”.

“The reason we engage in international trade is because it is in our national interest.”

The Government said the $2 billion Southeast Asia Investment Financing Facility will be administered by Export Finance Australia and will provide loans, guarantees, capital and insurance for projects that would boost Australian trade and investment.

In particular, it is designed to support the region’s “clean energy transition and infrastructure development.”

“Australia’s economic future lies in our region,” Mr Albanese said.

“I am proud to lead a government that is strengthening our trade and investment ties with Southeast Asia, directly contributing to our shared economic prosperity.”

He added: ‘When our region prospers, Australia prospers. “Our work internationally is delivering results for Australians – for jobs, for our economy and for our people.”

Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham agreed that Australia’s relations with the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Timor, which is on track to join it, are vital to ‘regional stability and prosperity’.

“We are facing… huge opportunities in this region in terms of the potential for greater economic growth and to lift more people out of poverty across the region,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

He said the ASEAN summit currently being held in Melbourne offers “opportunities for Australia and trade and investment relationships with the fast-growing economies of Southeast Asia”.

“But also critical in terms of how we confront the challenges in our region is China’s growing use of influence and power, militarily and otherwise, and the need for us to work with Southeast Asian nations to maintain our open (and) stable region,” he said.

Albanese said the investment he announced in Melbourne was “the most significant enhancement of Australia’s economic engagement with Southeast Asia in a generation”.

“ASEAN nations represent Australia’s second largest two-way trading partner and will of course grow to be the fourth largest economy (in the world) by 2040.”