Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. It is the case that a particular focus of our working groups, which are aiming at reform legislation we are hoping to bring to the parliament very soon, has been on the mining sector, because when we look at what the mining sector has done for this country and for every employee in this country during the COVID-19 pandemic it's been nothing short of remarkable. Perhaps when we think about the comeback that we're now in the middle of, economically there are few sectors that have played a greater role in preserving jobs during the crisis that we have been through, and there'll be few sectors that'll play a more important role as we come out and come back from the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

When we look at the mining and resources sector, it has remained remarkably strong during 2019-20 and during the COVID crisis. It accounts for nine per cent of Australia's GDP and for half of the Australian export earnings totalling $290 billion. But in the June 2020 quarter the national accounts showed that the mining sector still actually managed to grow by 0.2 per cent. So, in the height of the COVID pandemic, against the trends, compared to an economy-wide fall in growth of seven per cent, the mining sector still managed to grow by 0.2 per cent. The automatic stabilising effect that that employment had on our economy and for every single Australian cannot be underestimated. The mining industry did great things for us during the COVID pandemic and can be one of the central keys to working our way out. Even through all of the struggles that we've been through, mining investment has been on the rise. It's up by 1.3 per cent, or $13½ billion, in the June quarter and 7.9 per cent, or $52 billion, in the 12 months since the June quarter in 2019.

One of the things that we have been looking at with respect to the mining sector is the issue of greenfields agreements. We want to try and create an optimal regulatory setting to support the next wave of major resource and project investment. Why do we want to do that? Because we think these complicated investment decisions are very important, and they produce that countercyclical growth we have seen in the mining industry. In a 2019 survey of infrastructure market participants, there was pretty serious concern indicated about the level of regulatory burden and how that impacts on investments. Seventy-nine per cent of investors said North America provides a compelling investment opportunity; unfortunately, less than half said the same thing about Australia. Eighty-three per cent agreed that various uncertainties in Australia's policy and regulatory setting are limiting their willingness to invest. That is why we want to see life-of-project greenfield investments—to bring on more investment decisions, more investment and more employment in mining.

See this speech in context