Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to join this motion put forward by the member for Dawson followed by the member for Capricornia, two members in this place who actually are concerned about the workers and the constituents in their electorate and are prepared to come in here and stand up for them. Standing up for their own constituents—that is a job that we all have an obligation to do, and I will be very interested to listen to the member for Herbert's contribution to this debate, to see whether she stands up for the constituents of her electorate, like the member for Dawson and the member for Capricornia have.

The member for Dawson says in his motion that he recognises the long-term global demand predictions for coal. I have listened to members of the Labor Party during this debate and the shadow minister for climate change, who said:

The demand for thermal coal exports around the world is in rapid decline.

We have heard from member after member on that side that coal is in decline. Let us look at what the evidence is, rather than the bald-faced assertions of Labor Party members. What do the Minerals Council have to say about this story that coal is in decline? The Minerals Council said:

The value of Australia’s thermal coal exports is expected to grow by 28 per cent in 2016-17 and total $19 billion, according to official forecasts.

That is the Minerals Council. What about some other interesting groups? What about the Resources and energy quarterly? The most recent one, put out by the government department, says this about coal exports coal trade:

Global thermal coal and lignite demand is projected to increase …

Members of the Labor Party come in here during this debate and claim that coal is in decline, but it continued to increase. The report continues:

By 2022, global trade is projected to rise … from 2016 levels to 1.06 billion tonnes.

How about someone else? What do the International Energy Agency have to say about this myth that Labor are putting forward that coal is in decline? The International Energy Agency's figures, even under the new policy scenario, show that in every single year up to 2040 coal continues to increase. They are the facts.

What about the coal power stations being constructed around the world? What could be driving this increase? Let us look at a report, and this is not a report from the Minerals Council; this is a report from the Sierra Club and Greenpeace—hardly the friends of coal, and this is a report they put out to try to show that coal is somehow in decline. Their report shows—again, this is a Greenpeace report—that there are 824,531 megawatts of coal-fired power stations under active development. Let us put that in some context. We know that the Hazelwood power station that closed down was 1,600 megawatts. So, that is the equivalent of 540 Hazelwood power stations currently under active developed around the world. All these power stations are going to need coal to operate. The future for coal—no matter what anyone says, no matter what new myths anyone wants to put forward—if you look at the numbers and if you look at the statistics, there is no doubt that coal will continue to be used in record quantities for the decades to come.

We had the member for Shortland in here talking about uncertainty in investment. We heard the word 'uncertainty' at the hearings on Friday of the House energy committee. They said there is no uncertainty in wind or solar, because they can get lavish subsidies. Where the uncertainty comes from is for those who want to invest in baseload coal-fired power generations. And that is what this nation needs. That is the reason energy cost in this nation are going up—because we have had baseload coal-fired power stations closing and being replaced with intermittent and useless wind turbines. The other week, every single wind turbine in this country was producing absolutely zero energy. Wind turbines from South Australia to Tasmania to Queensland—zero, not enough to run a single light bulb. We need new coal-fired baseload power stations in this nation. (Time expired)

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