Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

It shows I've hit a sensitive note there—he's been forced to take spurious points of order.

Let's go back to the facts. A billion-dollar subsidy is a bad idea. I do not support it at all because it threatens hundreds of coalmining jobs. I support our existing coalmines. They've got a long life. Sixty-five per cent of Australia's trade in coal is in metallurgical coal, coking coal, and that's got a strong future, but thermal coal trade is declining globally. We need to be cognisant of the fact and make sure we've got plans in place for a transition that should take decades. The most important thing we owe to coalminers and the communities that depend on them is honesty—honesty to say that change is coming, honesty to say, 'We will work with you over the decades when the change is occurring to transition your industry and the communities that depend on you.' The easiest thing for a politician to do in this place is to lie to people—to put their head in the sand and say, 'Change isn't coming.' Well, change is coming. As I said, global coal consumption peaked in 2013 and it is declining every year, and we need to be honest with our communities.

I'll end where I began by saying that I'm proud to represent a coal community, I'm proudly embedded in that community and I recognise the world that coal delivered to my region for 200 years. But we need to face up to the facts, stop peddling lies, stop giving people false hope and stop trying to subsidise a Queensland project that imperils the 18,000 coalminers in my community.

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