Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Competitiveness) Share this | Hansard source

On issues of the impact of carbon pricing or the MRRT on business investment decisions, listen not to what the coalition says but look at what investors are doing. The projections in the MYEFO, the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, suggest that the pipeline of resources investment in Australia is continuing to grow since the budget to more than $450 billion. It says:

Following growth of 34 per cent in resources investment in 2010-11, resources companies expect to increase their capital expenditure by a further 74 per cent in 2011-12 …

Indeed, the Reserve Bank's most recent statement on monetary policy predicts that investment, as a share of GDP, will hit its highest level in half a century. That is why I say: listen not to what the coalition says in its fear campaign but look where investors are putting their dollars.

Modelling has been done on the impact on the economy of Queensland of putting a price on carbon. That modelling suggests the following: the growth of the Queensland economy is expected to be strong, with average annual gross state product growth, in real terms, of 3.5 per cent per annum to 2019-20. That is Queensland Treasury modelling and it indicates very strong growth. In fact, the modelling report goes on to say:

… average annual growth in Queensland’s real GSP to 2019-20 will be 3.5 per cent both with and without carbon pricing …

This is the crucial point: there will be strong growth of 3½ per cent with or without carbon pricing. Yet we have the Leader of the Nationals coming into the parliament seeking to convey a belief, an impression, that the carbon price is going to have an adverse effect—some sort of devastating effect—on our mineral and mineral-processing industries in Queensland. Indeed, the same report from Queensland Treasury says:

… employment is forecast to grow at 2.0 per cent per annum both with and without carbon pricing, with an extra 474,000 jobs expected over the period to 2019-20 …

Those are the dispassionate forecasts done by the Queensland Treasury, but we hear not a word of that from the Leader of the Nationals and would-be Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.

Very soon after the announcement by the Gillard government of the carbon-pricing mechanism, Peabody, the largest coalmining company in the world, made a $4½ billion bid for Macarthur Coal. That is a major investor voting with its wallet. Indeed, I have a list here of major mining projects that have been approved and announced, including: BHP Billiton's Caval Ridge Mine project development; BHP Billiton again with the Goonyella to Abbot Point rail line, employing 2,000 people directly; QR National's Wiggins Island rail project, employing 3,000 people directly and indirectly. Origin Energy, ConocoPhilips and Sinopec—this is coal seam gas, which obviously the coalition is opposed to both up in Queensland and here federally, as they never stop attacking the coal seam gas industry—are employing 6,000 people in construction and 1,000 people in operations. Xstrata has the Lady Loretta zinc construction project. BHP Billiton is the lead company for the Bowen Basin metallurgical coal project—that is a $5 billion investment. And there is the Lake Vermont expansion of the coal-handling and preparation plant near Dysart in Central Queensland. Those are just a few of the examples of the projects that are going ahead under the carbon price that has been announced by the Gillard government.

The problem is that the coalition is speaking out of both sides of its mouth. When the Leader of the Nationals is up in regional Queensland he is very fond of attacking the mining industry. At the beginning of the matter of public importance he said the mining and processing industries are the 'economic pillars of Queensland'. That is what he says when he comes to Canberra, but when he is up in Queensland he says:

I share the disappointment about how few mining companies contribute to the areas they invade …

So we have the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Queensland accusing mining companies of invading areas, yet when he comes to Canberra he says they are the pillars of the economy of Queensland. That is the sort of approach we get from the coalition: saying one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience.

It is not just mining companies who are voting with their wallets; it is members of the opposition who are voting with their wallets. I will go through the members of the coalition who have invested and continue to invest their money in mining companies: the member for Goldstein, the member for Durack, the member for Maranoa, the member for Canning—

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