Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of touring a very significant industrial operation in my electorate of Capricornia. It was the QMAG magnesium plant just near Rockhampton. There has been a recent change of ownership for the company and they are entering a very exciting new phase of their operations in looking at some increased research and development and also an expansion.

QMAG operates a magnesite mine at Kunwarara, which is about 90 kilometres north of Rockhampton, and the magnesium production facility I toured was at Parkhurst, just on the outskirts of Rockhampton. QMAG produces high-quality deadburned magnesia and electrofused magnesia for industry and calcined magnesia for agricultural, hydrometallurgical, paper and environmental industries. QMAG also sells raw magnesite for uses in input into other mineral processing industries. The company exports the majority of its production to numerous customers throughout the world as well as supplying a large part of Australia’s requirements for these products. QMAG commenced operations in 1991 and has sufficient magnesite reserves to operate for many decades into the future. The longevity of the operation was recently enhanced by the purchase of mineral rights to an adjoining magnesite deposit at Kunwarara. The operations are state-of-the-art in world terms and the electrofused magnesia and deadburned products are recognised as being amongst the highest quality magnesia products in the world.

The production at QMAG is very efficient, both in terms of its energy use and its greenhouse gas emissions, and it benchmarks very well against its competitors overseas. It produces magnesia with up to 50 per cent less electricity and combustible fuels per tonne of product, and a 70 per cent higher yield per tonne of feed than magnesia plants in Asia, which are the main sources of competition for QMAG.

There are plans by the company to expand its operations, with feasibility studies taking place right now. Naturally, given the nature of the industry and the plans for expansion, one of the issues raised with me was climate change. The most important thing for an operation like QMAG is regulatory certainty. What really shows the neglect of the government is that they have had 11 years to act and show leadership on climate change, but they are still fiddling around and unable to really give any certainty to companies.

Rest assured, the Labor Party will waste no time should we win government later this year. We have committed to developing an emissions trading system by 2010 and, as an indication of our approach to setting up that system, you need only look at the national summit which was held earlier this year which brought together people from business, industry and science. We will work with all sectors to achieve reductions in emissions at the least cost to the economy. I will certainly be working to ensure that QMAG is involved in those discussions should we win government. (Time expired)