Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Thanks to the chair of our committee who did a good job leading us through what I think has culminated in a great report being tabled today that, as the chair just said, will have some positive affects for people living in regional areas in particular.

As the chair did, I want to thank the members of the committee and, in particular, the committee secretariat, Susan Cardell; the inquiry secretary, Emma Banyer; Tim Brennan; Tegan Scott and Tamara Palmer. I want to thank everyone who wrote into the committee for this inquiry, especially those who prepared submissions and all the witnesses who gave evidence as we travelled around the country—thank you.

I'll just make the quick point that I was very glad that we were able to get the hearing up to Darwin, to my electorate of Solomon. I'm glad the Territorians and peak industry groups also got to have their say, including the Minerals Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the NT Manufacturers Council, NT Farmers and Charles Darwin University.

I won't go into too much detail, but I will just say that I think these recommendations essentially detail how we can improve the social licence of mining companies and strengthen relationships and partnerships between working communities and mining companies, between industry and governments and, indeed, between governments themselves. There were a number of recommendations that suggested ways that we could increase social licence of mining companies. There were recommendations that the federal government consult with state and territory governments on existing legislation and frameworks with a view to increasing that social licence for mining companies to work in regional areas of Australia. Obviously, our sincere hope is that regional areas of Australia are strengthened through that partnership with mining companies and with industry.

Just quickly, on payment terms—and the chair mentioned this—the committee came to a belief that payment terms that were unreasonable were having a really negative effect on the reputation of mining companies in some regions. This has a flow-on effect on the community and is detrimental to growth and sustainability and to the functioning of those businesses. For these reasons, the committee recommends that, if the industry does not get its act together, government should legislate maximum payment terms.

In developing the regions, one thing I think is worthy of note is some of the positive recommendations that were made about local employment, including Indigenous employment, in these regional areas. We all know that FIFO is an issue for regional Australia, and we want our regions to be resilient and sustainable. So we need to get the balance right, and we also need to make sure that there is a workforce in regional areas to service the mining industry, because that will be good for regional areas of Australia and it can be good for mining companies.

I will just quickly finish up by saying that the skills that mining companies will require into the future will require a workforce which we hope can be local as much as possible, but which obviously needs to be trained with the skills needed by the industry. Part of that is funding of TAFE, funding of proper education opportunities and reskilling where possible so that local people living in those regional areas have a great opportunity to have those jobs in those regions, and that would have a great effect for families living in regional areas.

In conclusion, I want to thank everyone that worked with the chair and me. It's great that the other members of the committee will have an opportunity to make some commentary as well. Through these recommendations, which were derived from consultation with our community and the regional areas of Australia, it is our great hope that regional areas of Australia will get a fair go and a better go and that that will make us better and stronger as a nation. Thanks to all who contributed to this report.

See this speech in context