James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak today in favour of the Australian Energy Market Amendment (Minor Amendments) Bill 2008. This bill makes minor technical amendments to the Australian Energy Market Act 2004, the Australian Energy Market Amendment (Gas Legislation) Act 2007, the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 and the Trade Practices Act 1974. This legislation finalises a cooperative legislative regime that regulates access to gas pipelines on a national basis. Under national regulatory and rule-making bodies the Australian Energy Market Agreement commits all Australian jurisdictions, state and federal, to developing and applying legislation as part of this regime. This bill will ensure that the necessary Commonwealth legislation is in place to give effect to the National Gas Law. This process has the full support of the Ministerial Council on Energy and represents a bipartisan, cooperative and natural approach to regulating access to gas pipeline infrastructure.

The Natural Gas Law will reduce the regulatory burden on industry, improve service provider certainty and protect the long-term interests of consumers by (i) introducing a new light-handed form of regulation that regulators may apply, (ii) empowering the Australian Energy Regulator as the national regulator for gas access to improve the consistency of regulatory decision making, (iii) allowing for merits review by the Australian Competition Tribunal of key regulatory decisions, (iv) introducing strict requirements for timely regulatory decisions, (v) increasing information transparency and (vi) maintaining the greenfields incentives for new pipelines established by the MCE in June 2006.

This is all about ending the blame game. We are entering into a new phase with a new government with new ideas and new ways of doing business. We are moving away from the old federalism of: ‘It’s not our fault; it’s their fault’. We are moving into a new era. We are moving into a new era of cooperation—of consensus between federal and state governments. This is ending the blame game, which was definitely a hallmark of the last 11 years of the coalition government. So that is coming to an end.

I can honestly say that I have worked well in my time previous to this on Mackay city council and enjoyed good working relationships with people on both sides of the political spectrum. We always looked for consensus and outcome and were outcome driven. When it comes to energy, this is all in the national interest. We have to look at the common good and we cannot have self-interested parties involved here. We have to work for the common good of the whole nation in our energy needs, and that is particularly so here as well. Something that I experienced in my role in Mackay city council was working with state members Tim Mulherin, the member for Mackay, and also Jan Jarratt, the state member for Whitsunday. We had excellent working relationships with those state members.

But, unfortunately, the National Party member who held the seat of Dawson prior to me was obstructionist, quite frankly, and consistently so over the last 11 years. It was like trying to drag a horse to water and make it drink. There was just total non-cooperation. That is why the people of Dawson decided to vote for change. They decided to vote for new ideas, and they are looking for outcomes and results for the common good of all people, regardless of political persuasion. People on the other side need to remember that 10.2 per cent is in no way a safe seat when such obstructionist behaviour is taking place. I thought I would remind the member for Fadden of that.

I would like to mention Col Meng, the current mayor of the new Mackay Regional Council, which has taken in two other councils—the council of Sarina and the council of Mirani—and is now a regional council of over 100,000 people. I am looking forward in the upcoming weeks, on 29 June, to meeting with Col Meng, the new Mackay regional councillor. He will be hosting part of the community cabinet. Kevin Rudd and the cabinet will be coming to Mackay, and we will be meeting together with the local regional council and the state members and their representatives and we will be working together for the common good of all in all outcomes. That includes new ideas on energy.

The seat of Dawson is an exciting place to be. We have some great prospects, particularly with resources and mining. For example, the Queensland Resources Council has said that by 2015 we will need an extra 15,000 resource workers in Queensland, and one in four of those will be in the seat of Dawson. Bowen is halfway between Mackay and Townsville. My seat stretches from South Mackay to southern Townsville; it goes right up to the Ross River, and right in the middle is Bowen. Bowen is a town which is going to boom into a great city. There are a lot of good things going on for Bowen at the moment. Just 20 kilometres north of Bowen is a port called Abbot Point. It is one of the few natural deep water ports around the coast of Australia. Currently we are exporting 21 million tonnes of coal out of there. The Queensland ports corporation has briefed me, and we are looking forward to expanding that from 21 million tonnes a year to a goal per year of 50 million tonnes in the foreseeable future and long term 110 million tonnes.

This is going to add to the bottom line of this nation. We are exporting our resources, our energy-producing fuels. That is good news for Bowen because there is an accommodation crisis, as there is around the nation, and people are coming in, workers are coming in, and we are having to build. It is good for the economy of Bowen, good for the economy of Dawson and good, very good, for the bottom line of this nation. This Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, understands that basic key infrastructure is essential in facilitating the movement of these resources out of our country as a major export across the seas to China, Japan and India, to name but a few.

I want to focus on Bowen, because it has actually been used as the site of part of Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia, which will be released in November of this year. That is going to add value to the whole nation as well, and Bowen is going to be showcased because a lot of the film was actually shot there. That is going to add to international tourism. International tourism is going to come into Mackay, the Whitsunday Islands and Bowen. So Bowen has an exciting future—right in the centre, right in the heart, of my seat of Dawson.

Another thing that is going to be going well for Bowen is that I am lobbying the Prime Minister, all the cabinet and my fellow MPs hard and advocating the need for the Aluminium Company of China to come and set up at Abbot Point. It is the ideal place to have an aluminium refinery. The reason? It is 20 kilometres to the nearest residential town of Bowen, so there is a natural buffer zone where these activities can take place. So I continue to lobby; I continue to advocate. I have spoken to representatives from the Chinese embassy and have made it very clear that they are welcome and we would love to have them at Abbot Point. I want to make that very clear and put it on the record here today.

These things do not happen unless there is cooperation, unless there is consensus and agreement—one thing I have made very clear. The previous mayor of Bowen, Mike Brunker, happens to be the new mayor of the new Whitsunday Regional Council, which now takes in what was the old Bowen council. Mike is absolutely passionate about Bowen because he has been connected with the mines in Collinsville and his family are in the mining industry. He is passionate about having a baseload subpower station somewhere between Bowen and Collinsville, which is about an hour west of Bowen. Again, we need a baseload power station and from the research and background reading I have done on the science innovation committee, I suggest, that hot rock thermal power is the most highly sustainable energy supply which can go up to baseload subpower station levels. Solar, wind and wave power just cannot reach those levels without absolutely massive saturation of whatever is being put forward; whether it is wind propellers or wave motion, it takes an incredible amount of set-up. But we have hot rock thermal in abundance in this country. I am pleased to say that it is possible between Bowen and Collinsville. We need that baseload power station not just for all the energy industries that are going to come in to North Queensland but to power up North Queensland.

I know the member for Kennedy, Bob Katter; I have to say I have had some very fruitful discussions with the member for Kennedy.

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