Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As an engineer, a scientist and a proud member of the Albanese Labor government, it is my pleasure to stand here, after a decade of waste, delay and inaction. It is outrageous to see what has happened in the past. We are the land of opportunity, and we have the opportunity to build on the opportunities of this place. But what happened under the previous government? We did not see that investment. And what can we do? We can plan our economy for the next generation.

So it is my deep pleasure to stand here in the Federation Chamber to recap the extraordinary, record levels of investment that the Albanese government is making into the resources sector to help achieve net zero emissions. As the mighty resources minister said, 'The pathway to net zero emissions runs through Australia'—and we Western Australians can say proudly that it will run through Western Australia. I am the daughter of a miner. My dad worked in the nickel mines. I am an engineer who started her career in steelcap boots on a mine site. And I am excited about the investment and the pathway that we will see happening in Australia.

We are providing $3.4 billion to Geoscience Australia over 35 years until 2060. This will comprehensively map Australia's natural resources. This is a long-term plan. It's a visionary program. It will map the most prospective areas of Australia's 7.7 million square kilometres. It will double our knowledge of Australia's geological resources and triple our understanding of Australia's critical minerals prosperity. This will help incentivise the private sector to explore and make discoveries and developments that will generate new jobs and opportunities under the Future Made in Australia. This program will fund precompetitive public geoscience and will map all of Australia's critical minerals, strategic minerals, alternative energies such as hydrogen, groundwater, geological storage and other important resources essential for our transition to net zero.

Precompetitive geoscience comes before private exploration and investment, not instead of it. In fact, it lays the groundwork for the private sector to explore and invest in private capital in Australia's mighty resource sector. The investment will send a strong signal to the international trading partners that the Albanese Labor government fully supports critical minerals exploration and development. It will place Australia in a strong position to maintain our competitive investment edge and our fair share of the resource market. This groundbreaking government investment in understanding where our critical minerals are in this vast continent will ensure that Australia and Australians minerals can be an indispensable part of the global drive to net zero emissions. It will lay the groundwork for minerals that we extract, refine and process and the goods that we can manufacture for decades to come. This program will be the foundation for Australian jobs, now and into the future.

The road to net zero runs through Australia's resource sector, and the Labor government's investment in Geoscience Australia will be a multi-decade on-ramp to things such as delivery of an inventory of national resource potential, consisting of multiple national maps including maps of hot spots for critical minerals and strategic minerals and other resources we need to support the transition. It will also assess all of Australia's groundwater systems, supporting our climate resilience and our agricultural output and water security, something that we can all agree that we need. Geoscience Australia will also investigate 12 regions onshore that are considered highly prospective yet haven't been explored for the resources we need to support the transition. They will also provide essential geoscience information to a wide audience including regional communities and farmers to support land and water management practices.

The benefits are clear. Deloitte Access Economics found that existing public precompetitive geoscience was estimated to support $76 billion worth of value to the Australian economy and also support 80,000 full-time equivalent jobs. This is a very exciting program. Go, team!

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