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

I'm pleased to rise to support this motion moved by the good member for Forde, who I know has great interest in the people of his electorate and the businesses there, and in creating opportunities for those businesses to export to Japan. Over the past 12 months we've seen the success of our free trade agreement with Japan. Just look at some of the results: frozen beef exports up 32 per cent to $663 million; honey exports up 66 per cent to $1.7 million; mandarin exports up 65.8 per cent to over $8 million; bulk wine exports to Japan up 52 per cent to $3.9 million; shelled almond exports up 55 per cent to $3.6 million; and shelled macadamias up 24 per cent to $2 million. These export sales add wealth to the country. They create wealth, especially in our regional areas. They strengthen them, with income flowing into them, with higher prices—good for the economy and good for the country. Is it any wonder that last year we saw 400,000 new jobs created in this economy? Four hundred thousand is a record. That is because this coalition government understands that the way you create jobs is that you get government out of the way, and you give the private sector opportunities to get in and sell their products and exports.

Amongst all the great news of our increasing exports to Japan is coal. In 2016, Australia exported $11.1 billion worth of coal to Japan. I know that last year we had many members of the Labor Party, especially the soothsayer, the member for Port Adelaide, the man with the great vision of the future, stand there and say that thermal coal exports were in significant decline. 'Substantial decline' was the prediction from the member for Port Adelaide for coal exports. Can you guess what happened to coal exports to Japan last year—remembering that the member for Port Adelaide said that they were in decline? I'm proud to say here in the House today that Australia's coal exports to Japan last year increased by 50 per cent to $16.78 billion. That was an increase of $5.68 billion worth of coal alone—an amazing increase. And yet we had members of the Labor Party, their shadow spokesman for energy, running around in the middle of last year telling all and sundry that thermal coal exports were in decline. Could he have got it more wrong? And is it any wonder? Japan have 45 new coal-fired power stations currently under construction—45—and yet we have zero coal-fired power stations under construction. Japan's economy is going ahead. They understand the importance of low-cost energy, and that is why they are building new coal-fired power stations.

And it's not only Japan that are increasing their consumption of coal. Last year—the numbers are just in—we saw China increase their consumption of coal by 5.2 per cent. We had all the experts in the Labor Party telling us the exports of coal to China were in decline. We saw last year China increase their consumption of coal by 5.2 per cent. To put that in some context: if we took our entire consumption of coal in all of Australia—every single last piece of coal that we burnt and we used to generate electricity—China's increase last year was double what we used. That was just their increase. We've seen the International Energy Agency's forecast for coal demand to increase. They expect the increase of coal for 2022 to be $5.5 billion tonnes, up from the current $5.2 billion tonnes. As the President of the USA said in his State of the Union speech:

… we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal.

It's about time the Labor Party joined with the rest of the world and realised that coal exports are increasing, not decreasing.

See this speech in context