Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

One is the need for these economies to diversify their economic base and two is their preparedness to embrace a clean energy future. In all of these communities, on the second point in particular, they are already making the change. They are seeing the opportunities in a clean energy future rather than the threats that they hear from the other side. They have shown real and positive interest in the package that we have announced. Whether it is looking at the opportunities in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the clean technology programs, the jobs package, the Low Carbon Communities package, the Biodiversity Fund or Carbon Farming Initative packages, these are the opportunities they want to take because they have determined this agenda themselves. This is not imposed upon them; this is their agenda. They have determined the what and they are looking for assistance in the how. The package that has been announced by the Prime Minister provides that very assistance. One of these forums that I attended was actually in Whyalla. A couple of weeks before, the Leader of the Opposition had been to Whyalla and he had great news for Whyalla. He told Whyalla it would be wiped off the map. This was the rosy news he was giving Whyalla! That is not what the community in Whyalla was telling me. They saw real opportunity in this package for themselves. They are developing a green energy grid strategy. They have got a group that is looking for investment opportunities and skills. I visited two sites over there, a solar site which has a potential for in excess of 200 jobs and also a rare earths facility that has the opportunity of providing in excess of 1,000 jobs—hardly wiping them off the face of the earth.

This is the problem that we are dealing with here: an opposition that simply wants to run a fear campaign because it has got no policy substance. Its policy has been ridiculed by everyone who has had a look at it. In that policy it was the Leader of the Opposition that was going to close the Hazelwood power station until he went down there and spoke to the workers and said, 'Oh no, I'm not closing your power station,' walking as usual on both sides of the street.

Those redundancies at Loy Yang the Leader of the Opposition talked about before were announced back in March. This is old news, and trying to link it to the package is not just dishonest but running the fear campaign, which we will counter at every point and which we know the regional leadership will embrace. (Time expired)

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