Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to follow the Minister for Resources and Water—I say that honestly—because he is enthusiastic about the sector. There are many problems with his contribution, but the one I want to pick up is the fact that he spent 10 minutes talking about the resources sector in the context of a commitment to net zero by 2050 and he didn't once mention any of the economic opportunities the transition will bring. He didn't mention battery manufacturing and inputs like lithium mining. He didn't mention hydrogen or the opportunities there. He concentrated on the staples of coal, gas and iron ore, which are all very important and have a great role into the future according to different time frames, but he didn't the mention future opportunities once. That shows the poverty of thinking from those opposite on this issue.

The truth is that Australia is blessed with the greatest reserves of iron and titanium in the world. We've got the second-greatest reserves of rare earths, copper and lithium and the third-greatest reserves of silver. We have all the critical inputs into batteries, electric vehicle manufacturing and the broader clean-energy industries. We've got the highest amount of solar radiation per square metre in the entire world, and we've got great wind and wave resources. All this, when you put it together with a government with a vision and a commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, means we could have a supercharged resources industry. We'd be the home of clean-tech manufacturing for the world. We'd be the home of energy-intensive manufacturing fuelled by cheap and plentiful renewable energy. Tomago Aluminium, for example, would be powered by renewable energy. We'd have clean steel centred in the Hunter again. Newcastle would be the real steel city again, unlike pretenders. We'd be the centre of hydrogen production for the world. All these are the potential that we have if we have a government that embraces net zero, embraces action on climate change and is not held hostage by the troglodytes in the National Party room.

We're backed up in that opinion by many leading corporates, none of them renowned as left-wing communists, none of them renowned as Balmain basketweavers. We've got Rio Tinto, who's committed $10 billion to halving emissions by 2030, including looking at one gigawatt of renewable energy. BHP is aiming for net zero emissions by 2050; as is the Minerals Council. The BCA has found that reaching net zero emissions by 2050 will boost economic growth by $890 billion and create an additional 195,000 jobs. An economic study by Accenture, supported by BCA and the ACTU, called Sunshot, found that Australia could be a clean energy export superpower by 2040, which would produce 395,000 additional jobs and an extra $89 billion in new exports. That is the potential if we embrace it, if we're not scared of the future, like those opposite.

Instead, under this woeful government that is tearing itself apart over climate right now, we are faced with being the rust belt of the Asia-Pacific. We'll face carbon border tariffs hitting Australian farm products, Australian resources and Australian manufactured goods. This is all because of the climate wars that they're perpetuating, because we have a Deputy Prime Minister who rejects the stance of BCA, BHP and Rio because they don't live in his electorate. He says he would rather represent the miners of Muswellbrook, not corporates. But I would contemplate that for a minute. Is he really representing the interests of the miners of Muswellbrook and the engineers of Emerald? I don't think he is. I actually think he's representing one particular mining industry figure, a person who lives a bit further afield than Muswellbrook or Emerald. Let's just call that person 'Gina from Perth'.

Gina from Perth wants Australian workers to earn $2 a day. She's a person who gave a speech at her old school denying climate change. This is the person the Deputy Prime Minister gets his policy advice from. It's not a surprise, since only four months ago she put on a $10,000-a-head fundraiser for the Deputy Prime Minister in her own home. She tried to give the Deputy Prime Minister $40,000 in cash through a made-up agricultural award. She's a woman who flew the Deputy Prime Minister on a private jet for a holiday in India in 2011. This is the one person in the mining industry that the Deputy Prime Minister listens to. For this person he is sacrificing the future of our country, the economic potential of our country, the hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs that we could create, all at the sacrifice of the zero per cent of billionaires that live in his electorate. This is the sad fate of climate policy and energy policy under this government. Those opposite listen to the wrong people. They don't listen to the science. They're guided by narrow sectional interests rather than embracing the true economic future that this country could have if only we had a government with vision, commitment and rational common sense.

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