Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

This government has wasted eight years on energy and emissions policy, and, even when the resources industry is implementing its own net zero emissions targets, the minister for resources still refuses to listen to reason. In question time today he failed to take the chance to support the net zero emission ambitions of the whole sector that he purports to represent. He has also, I might add, crab walked away from something he said, a report that he made to the Australian Financial Review that he wanted a $250 billion loan facility for the resources industry in addition to the finance that the government already provides that industry—which, I might add, Labor supports. The loans that are granted through Export Finance Australia and other provisions of government are things Labor has put in place in the past and will continue to support. The resources minister actually suggested a separate $250 billion loan facility for the resources industry in recent press but now he's crab walked away from that.

Australian resources sector exports are worth $283 billion per year. It is by far Australia's largest export sector. Iron ore is Australia's largest export product worth around $80 billion per year. Coal is our second largest export at $40 billion. The third largest is liquefied natural gas at around $30 billion. There are 238,000 people directly employed by the resources industry, including around 8½ thousand apprentices and trainees. The mining and METS sector supports an additional 900,000 Australian jobs indirectly. Moreover, the resources sector contributes tens of billions of dollars in taxes and royalties to Commonwealth and state treasuries each and every year.

Australian miners are world leading. They are serious companies run by serious people, financed by serious investors, operated by hard-working Australians. It is incomprehensible that the likes of the member for Hinkler, the minister for resources, thinks he knows better than the entire resources sector about their emissions and economic prospects.

Yesterday Rio Tinto announced it will switch its iron ore mines to run on renewables as part of its acceleration towards decarbonising. Today we read Rio will commit $10 billion to halve its carbon footprint by 2030. The Deputy Prime Minister might be entirely dismissive of Rio Tinto's efforts—as he was yesterday in question time deriding the fact that its CEO lives in London. Well, I can tell you where thousands of Rio Tinto workers live. They live in regions, towns, cities and suburbs right across this country. I remind the Leader of the Nationals that their head office sits just down the road in Barton in Canberra, so don't have a go at the CEO of Rio Tinto.

Earlier this week Mitsubishi Australia, a key investor in energy assets, including natural gas and metallurgical coal, announced a commitment to net zero by 2050 and a 50 per cent reduction by 2030. Last month BHP set a net zero emissions goal by 2050 and is working with its steel producing consumers to cut emissions as Western Australian iron ore becomes steel. In August the WA chamber of commerce Chief Economist, Aaron Morey, said, 'net zero emissions targets must be set at the national level'.

In October the Minerals Council of Australia confirmed the industry's ambition to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and its support of the Paris Agreement. The QLD Resources Council, under the leadership of the Hon. Ian McFarlane—Australia's longest serving resources and energy minister—also came out in support of this goal on the same day. We know Ian is a great conservative and maybe the minister might want to turn to him for advice. WA's chamber of minerals and energy has also announced its support for reducing emissions to net zero as soon as possible and no later than 2050. A couple of weeks ago, as we all know, the Business Council of Australia released a blueprint for Australia to reach net zero emissions, while growing our economy by $189 billion and creating 195,000 new jobs.

But in the lead-up to Glasgow and COP26, as the prime ministerial jet has been fuelled to take him back to the UK, what do we hear from the minister for resources? The minister for resources flatly refuses to support the climate ambitions of the industry he is supposed to represent. Worse, the minister openly stands against the resources sector's efforts to decarbonise their operations and their products. How can it be allowed to stand that the minister for resources of the Commonwealth of Australia is not in the cabinet? He refuses to support and he actively opposes the ambitions, efforts and investments of the industry he purports to represent. It is extraordinary, and it is an untenable position for this government and this minister to maintain.

Every time I visit a mine site and meet with an extractor company I am told about the efforts they are making to reduce emissions. I visit a lot of mine sites and resources operations, from iron ore mines in the Pilbara to coalmines in the Hunter Valley to gold and rare earth mines to the WA goldfields to LNG off the coast of Darwin and Karratha to lithium mines in the south-west of Western Australia to the nickel mine in Kambalda that feeds the BHP refinery in Kwinana in my electorate of Brand.

Barely a day goes by between commitments to net zero or announcements of strategies to get there or the new renewable energy projects that will power mines, camps and refineries. The Australian resources industry is heading to net zero emissions by 2050, with ambitious targets by 2030. The road to decarbonisation will create jobs and economic opportunities throughout the whole value chain. But, under this do-nothing Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister is holding our nation to ransom—ably aided, I might add, by the resources minister and the former minister for resources, Senator Canavan. Despite the massive contribution of the resources sector to Australia's economic wellbeing, the resources portfolio has been excluded from cabinet because the Deputy Prime Minister doesn't like the member for Hinkley—or was it because the member did not vote for the member for New England to lead the Nationals? This is childish and petulant, and it shows enormous disregard for Australia's largest export industry, which is the backbone of this nation's economy. It is playing politics with the backbone of this nation's economy. It is ridiculous, it's obscene and it must stop.

We have a real opportunity now for the Australian resources industry to help the world decarbonise. WA is home to the largest hard rock lithium mine in the world, in Greenbushes, which I visited. A lithium processing plant is being built in Kwinana, which will create 200 ongoing jobs. Where does lithium go? It goes to batteries—that's right; we like to ignore them! Tesla is buying them from BHP. And it goes to other electric vehicles, to build the kind of car that the Prime Minister claimed would 'destroy the weekend'. You can see, as I have, that the Mount Weld Lynas rare earths mine in Laverton in WA's northern Goldfields is one of the world's highest-grade rare earth deposits. At Mount Weld they mine minerals that go into electric vehicle batteries, including Toyota's hybrid range, as well as minerals that are critical for producing small powerful magnets that make your mobile phone vibrate. So, next time the minister's phone vibrates from a call from a mining executive asking him to get his act together on net zero, thank Lynas and Mount Weld.

The most-sustainable and lowest-carbon nickel producer in the world is BHP Nickel West in Kwinana. It produced the first nickel sulphate crystals just this month and will produce 100,000 tonnes of nickel sulphate this year. That's enough nickel to make 700,000 electric vehicle batteries. And 50 per cent of BHP Nickel West's power is generated by the Merredin solar farm, and they hope to achieve more. BHP are actually doing it, while this government and minister sit on their collective hands. Nickel West represents 80 jobs permanently and 400 jobs indirectly just from the nickel sulphate plant. Across their entire operation, 2½ thousand people are employed in this vertically integrated mine-to-metal business. Every senator and every MP will be glad to know that they have a little bit of Kambalda and a little bit of Kwinana right in their pocket or in their hands when they carry their mobile phones around with them.

Labor will always stand up for the resources industry. We will support the ambition of the resources industry, which creates thousands of good jobs for workers right around the nation and is, as our biggest exporter, literally the backbone of our economy. Labor will ensure that Australia's minister for resources will have a seat at the cabinet table and not be relegated because of a childish spat. Labor acknowledges the work of the resources industry and is seeking to achieve net zero emissions, and if the current minister for resources doesn't want to get behind them he should get out of the way and resign.

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