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

I want to thank the member for Bendigo for her question. Last night, I was delighted to attend the Women in Resources National Awards alongside the member for Bendigo and other parliamentary colleagues. The member for Bendigo, in fact, is from a very proud mining region, and she had two finalists in these awards. It was a fantastic night, celebrating exceptional women in mining, an industry that, traditionally, does have a low participation rate. These awards went to women in mining trades as well as in technology and in the science behind a really very successful resources sector.

The Albanese Labor government's last budget featured the most significant investment in the resources sector for a generation. The centrepiece of this government delivering a future made in Australia is the $17 billion production tax incentive for critical minerals and rare earth elements, which will drive processing onshore and create secure jobs right around this country. Also delivering a future made in Australia is the $3.4 billion Resourcing Australia's Prosperity program, which will allow Geoscience Australia to help find those resources and the likely locations of critical mineral deposits for many years to come. We've committed millions of dollars to supporting common-user processing facilities and boosting our trade partnerships for critical minerals. All of these budget measures, combined with our international partnerships, demonstrate just how this government will support the Australian resources sector, because we understand that the resources sector is the engine room of our economy.

We have invested over $400 million to speed up environmental approvals, and our reforms will reduce red tape. We've doubled, through Minister Plibersek, the number of on-time approvals since the last government. We are doing much better than the former government in respect of approvals, and, in fact, we've approved 14 mining related projects under the EPBC Act alone.

In addition to supporting the resources sector, we've boosted the Critical Minerals Facility to $4 billion and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to $7 billion. The NAIF has supported, in the past two years that I have been minister, seven resources projects to the tune of $1.4 billion, leveraging $13 billion in private capital in concert with export-import banks from around the world. That is 7,000 jobs across northern Australia. That's 7,000 jobs that back the resources sector. What have those opposite done? Of course, all they've always done is say no. They've taken the resources sector for granted for eternity, and they'll continue to do so, while this government will make sure those 7,000 jobs happen in the resources sector, right across the north, and that's because we will deliver a future made in Australia. (Time expired)

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