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

It was very interesting to hear the member for Herbert waxing lyrical there, but not once during her contribution did she say, 'I support the mine and I support the workers in my electorate.' Not once did she say that. I see the member for Herbert leaves the chamber—no wonder. We come to this chamber to represent, stand up and fight for the people of our electorates. There we saw an example of a member betraying her own electorate. One would think, out of anyone in this parliament, it would be the member for Herbert that would stand up and say, 'I support the coal in the Galilee Basin', yet we didn't hear a peep from the member for Herbert.

We heard my good friend the member for Blaxland talk about how he's going to spend all this money. I'm sure what the people of North Queensland want is what every other Australian wants. They don't want government handouts; they want economic opportunity, and that's what that coal basin provides. It provides those people with economic opportunity to create real wealth, to pay royalties to the Queensland state government, and to pay payroll tax and tax on company profits to the federal government to pay for all those things that we need. Yet we have the Labor Party coming in, turning their back on the economic opportunities that this offers to their constituents.

We hear so much from the Labor Party members about how there's no demand for this coal. Let's just look at a few figures. Currently around the world there are 467 coal plants under construction in 35 nations. There are a further 903 in 50 nations—

See this speech in context