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

Thank you to the member for Hasluck for her question. The natural resources of this great continent are literally the bedrock and the starting point for a future made in Australia. The Prime Minister recently announced in Western Australia the groundbreaking Resourcing Australia's Prosperity program. Our government is investing $3.4 billion over 35 years for Geoscience Australia to find new deposits of minerals and sources of energy to build a future made in Australia. This is the largest investment of any Australian government in precompetitive geoscience, the science and exploration for the resources we need to get to net zero. All of the minerals and the rare earths we need for essential supply chains and green technology needed for net zero are found here in Australia. We just need to know where to find them, as Australia is 80 per cent underexplored. This is a generational investment in the science underpinning the resources sector and is an absolute game changer.

Along with a 10 per cent critical minerals production tax incentive, this is the most significant budget for the resources sector in this country ever. And we must remember: if companies don't make a value-added product, they don't receive a tax credit. It is an incentive based on success. We've also committed over $10 million of planning for critical minerals common user facilities in partnerships with the states and territories, who have welcomed these initiatives—as, I might add, have the Liberal and Nationals leaders in Western Australia.

So what is standing in the way? What are the barriers to these policies, I am asked. To be frank, they are the shadow Treasurer, the Leader of the Opposition and probably the whole of the LNP of Queensland. I wonder if they have taken the time to ask the Queensland Resources Council what they think of these policies.

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