Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

All of those coalition MPs who were elected to this place in 2007 went to that election pledging and advocating. So if this is a huge betrayal of Australia the question is: what was the identical carbon-pricing scheme that John Howard and the coalition were pledging in 2007? We know that the legislation passed last year is nothing more than a reasonable, moderate and considered response to the internationally acknowledged risk of climate change. The scheme is a policy response that accepts the mainstream science of climate change and it acts on advice from leading economists that the best way of reducing our emissions is to use a market based mechanism and transition to a clean energy future.

What this debate today has shown us yet again is that, when it comes to the opposition, fear will always trump fact. As we go to yet another episode in the scare campaign run by the opposition, the trouble is that the scare campaign keeps getting undermined. They cannot stop it from being undermined. They cannot get anyone to stick to the doomsday script that they keep promoting and peddling. For a start, the resource sector companies continue to invest. We have heard from other members of the record investment that is happening in Australia in our mining sector. As someone who represents a mining region in this place, I know only too well what is happening and what my constituents, many of whom work in the coalmining industry, can see right in front of their eyes.

We have heard of Peabody Energy's $4½ billion bid for Macarthur Coal. I can tell people about the numerous meetings that I have had in the time since the carbon legislation was passed last year, whether it be with Xstrata to tell me about the continued progress on the Wandoan project and the associated infrastructure—railway lines and port facilities in Gladstone—or with BHP on the expansion of their Hay Point coal-loading facilities and the expansion of their Bowen Basin mines, whether it is Caval Ridge or the Dornier mine, and the work that they are doing on a rail line and port facilities at Abbot Point. I met with them in Canberra just two weeks ago on that particular project and they are full steam ahead on that. We are seeing in Queensland the opening up of the Galilee Basin, which is going to be bigger than anything we have seen before. We think the coal industry in Queensland is big now—we ain't seen nothing yet. Adani, Waratah and Hancock are all falling over themselves to get in there and develop those Galilee Basin resources, again with infrastructure of 500 kilometres worth of railway line up to the Abbot Point coal-loading facility, which is being developed at the moment.

All this has happened and continues to happen since the announcement of the carbon price and its passage into legislation. If you look beyond what the companies are doing—and they are the ones who are putting their money where their mouth is on this—their advocates are telling us the same story. If you look at the Queensland Resources Council's Queensland resource sector: state growth outlook study, which dates back to November 2011 and was prepared by Deloitte Access Economics, the opening line states:

All of available evidence points to the Queensland resources sector being on the cusp of unprecedented expansion.

…   …   …

Capital expenditure on resource projects in Queensland in 2011 is expected to be almost double that achieved at any point prior to the Global Financial Crisis.

Again, no-one can stick to the script. The prospects for our resource sector and particularly our coal industry in Queensland are just too good. So the opposition comes in here every day, gets out on the doorstop and paints this doomsday scenario. No-one else is able to stick to the script because the future is just too bright to let anything stand in its way.

I could talk about one of our local regional economic development organisations up in Mackay. In February, the CEO of REDC was quoted as saying that there has been a 32 per cent increase in investment projects in the last six months—this is the last six months of 2011—equating to $107 billion in new projects. That is in the Mackay region in my electorate alone. I am talking about no-one being able to stick to the script. We have heard about all the opposition members who are have continued to invest heavily in resource sector companies despite going out and telling everyone how terrible it is for those same companies. Most telling to me is that Campbell Newman, the leader of the LNP running to be the member for Ashgrove and possibly Premier on Saturday, cannot stick to the script. I can remember all the chest beating last year: this election was going to be all about the carbon tax; it was going to be a referendum on the carbon tax. He was going to teach us a lesson. It was all going to be about the carbon tax. Has anyone heard Campbell Newman talk about the carbon tax? Has anyone seen this campaign on the carbon tax? There has not been one. Quite the opposite—he has not been campaigning about the carbon tax; he has based an awful lot of his campaign, particularly in the regions, on his 'royalties for the regions' concept. In the material he has been putting out, he talks about using the long-term royalty stream from the resource sector to build long-term infrastructure in resource regions. Why would he be saying that if he, like his coalition colleagues, genuinely believed that the future is so grim for coalmining and the resource sector in Queensland and that all is doom and gloom? Why would we be making long-term investments in resource regions for long-term sustainable growth and the long-term flow of royalties out of the resource industry if we thought it was all going to dry up next year or the year after? So Campbell Newman has got a bit of explaining to do. He has sent his coalition colleagues in here today to run the campaign against the carbon tax that he could not be bothered running and that is completely repudiated by the campaign material he is putting out spruiking the long-term stream of royalties from the industries that, according to these guys opposite, are going to shut down in the next six months.

The MPI is on the massive impact on mining communities. If we want to talk about the massive impact on mining communities, it is the growth that they are experiencing and the growth that we are acknowledging here on the government side of this House through the minerals resource rent tax. We acknowledge that the profitability of the resource sector is such that those companies can afford to make a greater contribution towards the infrastructure and support that is needed for industries right across Australia but most particularly in our resource regions. If members opposite want to talk about the impact on resource regions, they need to explain why they are not prepared to back the minerals resource rent tax, which will be providing needed infrastructure and support for those communities. (Time expired)

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