Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

The coal industry in Australia has a very bright future, and that will remain the case for many decades to come. Our coking coal will remain in heavy demand amongst the Asian countries that are making their way out of developing status, and our steaming coal will continue to displace dirtier coal produced in other countries.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 19:00 to 19:21

I was talking about the very bright future of Australia's coalmining industry, both in coking coal and steaming coal. It's a critical sector to the Australian economy. In my region alone, in the Hunter, it's worth around $15 billion to the regional economy. It employs, directly and indirectly, around 90,000 people. I don't need people to lecture me about the importance of the coalmining industry. I invite them to come to my region, to drive on the roads and see the traffic caused by the sector; to walk into any pub or supermarket and identify the high-vis work gear everywhere you go; to go to the local kids' footy and see that the sponsorship for the football jumpers comes from the coalmining industry; or to go to the Cancer Council's office in Singleton to learn that there wouldn't be a Cancer Council office in Singleton without the support and sponsorship of the coalmining industry. It's very important in my part of the world.

The problem with this motion is it's not really about coal generation; it's about the National Party versus One Nation. This is about the concern of the member for Dawson and others in Central and North Queensland about the creep of One Nation into their electorates. The member for Dawson—'Here we go; we'll build a coal-fired generator in North Queensland. That'll save my seat in Dawson, surely.' Well, it's a little bit more complicated than that, I suggest. The member for Dawson hasn't identified who is going to build this coal-fired generator. He hasn't identified who is going to fund this coal-fired generator. He hasn't told us whether it's going to be a high-efficiency, low-emissions generator or a standard coal generator. He hasn't talked about capture and storage. We're just magically going to have a new coal-fired generator in North Queensland.

We know that what this really produces is false hope for people. It's simply designed to win the National Party votes in Central and North Queensland. While we're on the subject of false hope, let's look at the most recent example in my own electorate, Liddell power station—a generator that is now 45 years old. It was set to close in five years time, and one day the Prime Minister wakes up with an idea: he's going to extend it another five years; he's going to insist that AGL extend it another five years. That was an argument that lasted two days. The word 'Liddell' dare not ever leave the lips of the Prime Minister or his energy minister any longer, because they were found out. They duped the people of the Hunter region. They led those power generator workers at Liddell to believe that they could extend their workforce for another five years, and it was never, ever true. What we need in this country is an energy mix. Many of our coal-fired generators, thankfully, will be with us for many years to come—for example, Bayswater, in my electorate, across the road from Liddell, will hopefully be open for at least another 15 years. But as time moves on, investment will cease to go to coal-fired generators. The member for Dawson hasn't identified an investor, because he knows there are no investors. We certainly won't get investors in coal-fired generators while we don't have a mechanism for pricing carbon. This is why we've had an investment drought for five years. Ever since the member for Warringah promised to deconstruct our carbon architecture, investment has dried up. That drought continues. Until the member for Dawson and others get on board and join us in a bipartisan approach to the pricing of carbon, we won't get investment flowing back into any form of generation in this country. Without further investment in generation in this country, we will continue to have rising prices and we will continue to see reliability undermined. And the losers under that scenario are, of course, Australian people, generally, in their homes, but of course Australian industry, as well, in particular our manufacturing sector.

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