Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Flynn for this question. I am pleased to have him in the House because he grew up in Gladstone and has lived and worked there for most of his life, in one of the key regional resources and energy regions of Australia. More importantly, he joins a growing band of regional members of the government, such as the representatives of Capricornia, Dawson, Leichhardt, Lingiari, Solomon, Lyons, Hunter and Brand, who have a good appreciation of the importance of the resources and energy sector to the Australian community. They very much appreciate that the resources and energy sector in Australia represents some major challenges.

It is interesting to note that the Leader of the National Party did not, for example, question the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government today about the AusLink investments in key regional centres—investments which the opposition failed to match during the election—such as the AusLink money being spent in places such as Dampier, Karratha, Bunbury and Esperance to try and overcome some of the infrastructure blockages in those key resources centres around Australia.

Let us go to the issue of skills shortages. We all appreciate that the resources and energy sector is vital to Australia’s future. One of the responsibilities of the Minister for Trade is not only to ensure that we maintain momentum on resources and energy but also to guarantee that we diversify the Australian industry base so as to make sure that, whilst we ride the resources boom for the foreseeable future, we open up additional employment and export opportunities for Australia. That is very important to the future of Australia. This is about a government actually confronting Australia with the need to make the hard decisions on a variety of fronts to guarantee that Australia is best positioned to confront the challenges of the 21st century. The resources sector is one of those vital sectors. It represents five per cent of Australia’s GDP. Importantly, when you add the downstream processing and associated minerals activity, it represents 20 per cent of Australia’s GDP. It also represents more than half of Australia’s export opportunities at the moment. We are talking about a nation that sees the resources and energy sector as being very much central to where we go in the next 20, 30 and 40 years.

One of the problems is not only infrastructure blockages but huge shortages of skills in Australia. We have to make sure that we do everything possible to overcome these key skills and infrastructure blockages, because in the resources and energy sector they are very much central to our future wealth and prosperity as a nation.

Let us deal with some of the backlog with respect to potential investment in Australia in the foreseeable future. At the moment, the investment planned in the resources sector is estimated at about $30 billion, up from $22 billion in 2006-07 and more than double the average expenditure over the last quarter of a century. So one of our challenges is to work with a whole-of-government approach to try and overcome some of the skills shortages at the moment, skills shortages which are in danger of stranding resources and energy development in Australia. You have to understand that, once it is stranded and investment goes elsewhere, it will be a long time before Australia attracts that investment back, and we will therefore miss out on important skilling and export opportunities.

I am pleased to say, in a complimentary way, that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship recently announced an increase in skilled migration of 6,000 people for this current financial year, with a special focus on the resources and construction sector.

More importantly, I am also pleased to say that during a recent visit to the Pilbara with the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs we had an important opportunity to actually sit down with key resource companies such as Woodside, Chevron, BHP and Rio to talk about the problems that confront them. They reinforced to us that the issue of skilled labour is one of the biggest problems in Australia. They also appreciate our endeavours not only to increase skilled migration but also to build integrity back into the 457 visa class, because it is important to their future. We also had the opportunity to talk about the support that the minister for Indigenous affairs is going to give to the resources and energy sector to try and maximise Indigenous employment and training opportunities.

I also welcome the recent announcements by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister of not only creating additional training places but also bringing on Skills Australia. This is not just about government at federal and state levels acting on this front. It is also about reminding the private sector: ‘Training is not a cost of running your business; it is an investment in your future.’ So we are looking to that new partnership. I encourage those key resource companies in major regional centres in Australia to actually start doing the work now with their local high schools and local communities: be on the ground running when we announce and put in place key election commitments to put apprentices back in schools, where they belong—to get these young people to start their apprenticeships at school. That will give us a better opportunity to enable them to finish school and also to start an apprenticeship, which will create great career opportunities for the rest of their lives. I simply say in conclusion that the resource and energy sectors are important to Australia, and the responsibility of all ministers, including me, is to actually do what we can to overcome the blockages on the infrastructure front and the skills front that could leave Australian resources stranded. In doing so, can I say time is not on our side. Our responsibility is to make sure we take the hard decisions to enable a modern Australia to confront the 21st century and guarantee working people a vibrant future.

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