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

I'm pleased to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive) Bill 2017. You are correct, Mr Speaker, it is very difficult to see how the member for Fenner during this debate could bring in anything about the GST. Yet from his speech it is very clear yet again that Labor believes in 'magic pudding economics'. A magic pudding redistribution of the GST is one where they give more to one state without taking away expenditure from other states. But back to the specifics of the bill—and this bill has one purpose: it is to continue the jobs growth and the wealth creation in our Australian economy that we have seen over the past two years and especially over the last 12 months under this coalition government.

Last year, over 400,000 new jobs were created in this economy. We can fill the MCG four times over with the number of new jobs in our economy in just 12 months—and 300,000 of those 400,000 new jobs were full-time jobs. More than 70 per cent were created in the private sector. In the coming months or, perhaps, even the coming weeks, we are going to pass the million new jobs mark. So, since the coalition government was elected back in 2013, this economy will have grown to one million new jobs. That number will be surpassed, as I said, most likely in weeks rather than in months.

Speaking on this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive) Bill 2017, gives us the opportunity to reflect on how important the mineral sector is to our economy. We know, from the numbers for 2015-16 alone, that our mining sector contributed $12 billion directly to Commonwealth and state government Treasury coffers. That's what pays for our schools, our hospitals, our aged care, our disability services and our pensions. Yet we see the curious inconsistency that those who are most vocal about demanding more government expenditure happen to be the same people who are most vocal about putting delays in place and about closing down and preventing our minerals sector from creating wealth in this country. Those who stand and protest about mining in this nation must understand that it is the wealth from those mines that pays for everything that we, the government, need to finance.

When it comes to our mining sector, it is important to encourage our junior miners. Unfortunately, in this parliament, many members who sit on the other side of the House like to go out and discourage our mining sector. I give the example of none other than the member for Port Adelaide, the shadow minister for energy—someone you would think would take every opportunity to talk up and encourage investment in our mining sector. But, no; the shadow minister for energy said last year: 'We need to be honest. There is no demand for additional thermal coal. Demand for thermal coal exports around the world is in rapid decline.' That's the kind of encouragement that members of the Labor Party give to our mining sector.

Let's just see how that prediction unfolded. Remember, this is the Labor shadow minister for energy saying, 'Demand for thermal coal exports around the world is in rapid decline.' He said that in the middle of last year. Let's just have a look at what actually happened last year. We will start with Australia. Although Labor believed that coal was in rapid decline, last year Australia's exports of coal hit an all-time record of $56.5 billion. It was an increase of over 30 per cent on 2016 and actually broke, or smashed, our all-time record, set back in 2011, of $46.7 billion. Of those exports, 20 million tonne was thermal coal and 172 million tonne was coking coal.

But it wasn't just Australia that had their coal exports increase, against the predictions of the best minds of the Labor Party. What happened in the USA last year?

According to the US census data, released only last week, US coal exports increased 60.9 per cent—a 60.9 per cent increase in US coal exports, yet the best brains in the Labor Party are telling us that coal exports around the world are in rapid decline.

Take Japan: what happened in Japan last year in contrast to the great predictions of the Labor Party? Here we are: on 24 January, a report from Reuters said that Japan's thermal coal imports rose to a record level last year:

Thermal coal imports rose 4.3 percent from a year earlier to 114.5 million tonnes in 2017, surpassing the 113.8 million tonnes imported in 2015 …

So there were record coal imports in Japan.

How about China? What happened in China last year in comparison to Labor's prediction of the rapid decline in thermal coal exports? A Reuters report on 8 February from Beijing said:

China's coal imports hit their highest in four years in January, customs data showed …

…   …   …

Thermal coal prices on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange touched a record-high of 679.8 yuan ($107.96) a tonne …

And they noted:

Seaborne coal shipments from Indonesia rose to 11.06 million tonnes last month, the highest since November, 2016, while coal arrivals from Australia climbed to their highest in months, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters Supply Chain and Commodity Forecasts.

Yet the experts in the Labor Party tell us that coal exports are in rapid decline. But it doesn't stop there. South Africa last year also recorded record thermal coal exports. It was the same in Indonesia: Indonesia this year forecast that their coal exports would be up seven per cent, and Indonesia expects their domestic demand for thermal coal to increase 17.5 per cent this year. And it goes on and on and on. Even the International Energy Agency has forecast that world demand for coal would hit a record 5.5 billion tonnes in 2020, up 300 million tonnes from the current levels of 5.2 billion. That is, it is forecast that 300 million more tonnes of coal will be consumed in four years time than today, yet Labor members of parliament—none other than their shadow minister for energy—are trying to talk down Australia's coal sector.

What do some of the experts in the industry say? Let's have a look at this report from TheSydney Morning Herald in January this year quoting New Hope Chief Executive Officer Shane Stephan, who told Fairfax Media:

We're seeing strong demand for higher quality Australian thermal coal in Asia, and that is what's driving the price.

They report that Rio's 'production was up eight per cent quarter on quarter, and up four per cent for the December 2017 half year'. Whitehaven's chief executive Paul Flynn is quoted as saying:

What we've observed is very strong demand out of Asia fuelled by their demand for high-quality coal to fuel their supercritical power stations.

'Very strong demand out of Asia'—yet we have the Labor shadow minister for energy telling us that demand is falling. We've even got MineLife's Gavin Wendt saying there is a very healthy price outlook for thermal coal.

Our encouragement of our mining sector is so important to the economic prosperity and job creation of our nation. To have Labor members continually running an anticoal rhetoric damages our economy and job creation. It damages wealth creation and undermines our nation's ability to finance the very important things that we continually hear whinged about in this place, from schools to hospitals to aged care, that we are not spending enough on. The only way that we can sustainably increase spending in those areas is to encourage those wealth creation industries, yet those who want the greatest government expenditure do everything they can to talk them down.

I'm sad to say that this anti-mining, anti-coal rhetoric is not confined to the Labor Party and the Greens. Unfortunately, it has affected some of our major banks. I'm talking here about the National Australia Bank, which put out a press release just before Christmas saying that they will no longer finance new thermal coalmining projects. We have record thermal coal exports around the world. We have the International Energy Agency predicting that the world will need 300 million more tonnes of coal than was consumed last year, yet here we have one of our major banks going out and issuing a statement that they will no longer finance new thermal coal mining projects. This is extremely disappointing. This is the greatest indication that our banks have far too much market power. To have such politically correct nonsense being put out in a press release by one of our major four big banks, talking down one of our nation's most important exports and our most important industries, is extremely disappointing, to say the least.

This coalition understands what creates wealth in this nation. We understand what creates jobs. We got the runs on the board over the last 12 months. We're going to continue that this year, because we understand that the best way to create jobs is not through big government, not through more regulation, but through taking the handcuffs off the entrepreneurs of this nation, getting rid of the red and green tape, so that they can go out there and invest with confidence and create jobs, knowing there is a government that will support them. That is what has worked in the past. That is what worked last year. That is what created those 400,000 new jobs. That is what will see this economy surpass one million new jobs under the coalition in the coming weeks. With that, I commend this bill to the House and I would ask members of the Labor Party to consider what is best for the nation, to put aside their anti-coal rhetoric and to get behind the mining sector and the wealth creation sectors of this nation.

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