Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question, because it goes not just to what government is doing in terms of providing stimulus to the economy but to what the private sector is doing to provide stimulus to the economy as well. And that goes, of course, to the future of our major resource projects right across the country—although we spent time earlier in question time today speaking of the critical role of small business.

I informed the House yesterday that the government of Australia and the Liberal government of Western Australia had reached an agreement in terms of the responsibility for the storage of CO2 in geological formations under Barrow Island as part of the Gorgon LNG project. That is a particular responsibility in terms of long-term indemnification arising from the sequestration action. But I draw to the House’s attention again the absolute financial significance of this project. If this project proceeds—although all approvals are not in place yet, and the Minister for the Environment has matters still to deliberate on—it will be a $50 billion investment. To put this into context, it is the largest single resource project in the country’s history. The government stimulus, if you take it together, adds up over time to some six per cent of GDP. This project in itself is worth about 5 per cent of GDP. It is a very large project indeed. That is why the Australian government, together with our other partners, has been actively engaged in deliberations on this with Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell.

There are, of course, other projects which are being considered for future development as well. Yesterday I referred to Woodside’s $12 billion Pluto 1 development, which is well advanced. Chevron is also progressing the Wheatstone Project by awarding the onshore front-end engineering and design contract. Wheatstone, for the information of honourable members, is to produce first gas in 2016. A final decision to proceed with the project is expected in 2011. This project involves two LNG-processing trains, each with a capacity of 4.3 million tonnes per annum, plus a domestic gas plant and export facilities at Ashburton North, west of Onslow.

Finally, Origin Energy today announced that its joint venture with ConocoPhillips, Australia Pacific LNG, had secured the Laird Point site on Curtis Island in the Port of Gladstone as a site for its proposed LNG plant. The construction of this project is estimated to be worth approximately $35 billion and is expected to produce up to 16 million tonnes of LNG per annum.

The reason I make reference to these projects is that the government, supported by the resources minister, other ministers in the government and the Treasurer, are actively behind the long-term resources industry of this country. We believe that the decision that we took—

See this speech in context