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

As I said earlier in the day when speaking on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and cognate bills, the Labor Party is the miners’ friend; it always has been and always will be. We have a commitment and a mandate from the people of Australia to cut carbon emissions. That is what we were elected to do and that is what we will do. We will create thousands of new energy jobs—green jobs reducing carbon going into the atmosphere, making coal clean so that it can be exported, and exported with confidence knowing that it will not be blocked by high tariffs by the European Union, the United States or anywhere else in the world. That is why we must have clean coal. In my seat of Dawson there are something like 38,000 miners who rely on the coal industry and the mining industry in general for their livelihoods—to look after their families, their homes and their children.

So let us have no more deceit from the other side of the House saying that cutting emissions will cut jobs. I want to say to everyone who sent me an email with that title in it: this Rudd Labor government is committed wholeheartedly to producing more coal to send overseas in our exports. We will create thousands more jobs, and I have evidence of that, because the local Daily Mercury often gets the message just right about what is going on in our community. The one I am holding, which is dated 3 October 2009, has an article ‘Port power! Port growth could jump’, which states:

DALRYMPLE Bay Coal Terminal has unveiled an ambitious $4 billion plan to expand by 80 per cent and create 1000 new jobs.

Do you think that this government would do anything to jeopardise that? No, absolutely not. We are in the business of increasing productivity and increasing new opportunities for mining companies to export to help the bottom line of this nation.

So let us not hear any more from the other side—or from the Australian Coal Association, with their scare campaign. They are earning multibillion dollar profits and they are saying to us, ‘You’re going to cut emissions but you’re also going to cut jobs.’ What a load of rubbish. We are in the business of building up this nation and making it a nation that is productive and fulfilling for the people who work in it. I want to make that very clear.

The towns of Mackay and particularly Bowen will boom. I have to say, Bowen is definitely a place in the seat of Dawson that is going to boom. It is going to boom big time. The Queensland Labor government of Anna Bligh have just announced that they are doing a public-private partnership with two coal companies to build the 69-kilometre missing link. What is it going to do? It is going to double productivity from 50 million tonnes a year to 110 million tonnes a year. Do you think this government is going to do something which is going to jeopardise that productivity, which will add to the bottom line of this nation’s wealth? Absolutely not. The Rudd Labor government is committed to expanding the nation, to building the nation and to increasing the nation’s productivity. That is what we have set out to do, that is what we have the mandate to do and we are going to do it.

We signed the Kyoto protocol. That is the first thing that we did. Then we said sorry to the Stolen Generations. Then we got rid of Work Choices. There was a bit of legislation that was going to cut jobs and drive hardworking families into the ground, earning a pittance because the laws of the land created by the other side of politics were driving working people down, down, down. The wages were going down, and if you did not accept your cut in wages you would lose your job. What bad laws they were. We had the mandate of the people in November 2007 to get rid of Work Choices. We kept our promises. That is what we did. We are in the business of giving workers security, stability, a good lifestyle, a good home, a good education and a good health service. That is what we are committed to doing, and that is what we are doing. We are getting on with the job. We are building this nation. So let us not have any more tittle-tattle from the other side of this House saying that CPRS is going to cost jobs. It is not. We are going to build the nation. We are going to build the wealth of the nation, we are going to work hand in hand with the international community and we are going to reduce the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere.

I think it is very important to get that right off my chest right now, because I have had enough of all these scaremongering tactics from the other side, making good working people in the mining industry in the Bowen Basin frightened for their jobs. It is typical. That is what you did with Work Choices and that is what you are trying to do with this CPRS scare email campaign. I have never heard anything like it. It is absolutely disgusting. You should be working in a bipartisan way to build this nation, to build the wealth of this nation and to look after the good of the atmosphere of this global world. We are working with everybody—

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