Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. The Treasurer would be aware that nearly three-quarters of Australia’s exports of coal and base metal and consequently the country’s standard of living depends upon mining. The Treasurer would also be aware that 82 per cent of the world’s copper, 54 per cent of the world’s zinc and 46 per cent of the world’s lead is sourced from countries without an ETS burden and that Australia is in the top quartile of mining cost structures.

In light of the fact that electricity averages 25 per cent of all mining costs and since the proposed increases in electricity prices have been modelled by MMA for Treasury to be over 25½ per cent, and since the CPRS regime is now agreed to by the bulk of the LNP members from Queensland as well as the opposition, could the Treasurer assure the House that he will take action to see that competitively priced renewable energy will come on stream from his and Resources and Energy Minister Ferguson’s transmission line clean energy corridor initiative in Northern Australia?

Finally, can the Treasurer ensure that such actions will be taken as are necessary to ensure that these competitive prices will be passed on to the miners in north-west Queensland? Finally, in light of the government’s and opposition’s CPRS agreement, will the Treasurer open dialogue with Queensland to free up two per cent of the world’s answer: namely, the north-west Queensland uranium reserves, currently embargoed, in an indefensible restraint of trade, by the Queensland government?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the member for Kennedy that he can have one finally, not two finallys, but I will allow the question. The Treasurer has the call.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kennedy for his question because he has an intense interest in the future of all of those commodities which are particularly concentrated in the north-west. For that reason I was pleased to visit there some three or four months ago and to meet with all of the industries from the region. I was very pleased to do so with the Queensland Treasurer and, in particular, to discuss with locals the implications of the Sims report, what that means in terms of the supply of power to that region, whether or not there would be a transmission line and how that was being handled by the framework put in place by the Queensland government. I also think it was very productive that, at the roundtable convened only about a month ago here in Canberra with my colleague Minister Ferguson and also the member for Kennedy, the member for Leichhardt and the member for Dawson, we had a very important discussion about the renewable energy resources in that region and how they might be further developed and, in particular, about the importance of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the RET that we have put in place to drive investment in that region, most particularly investment in renewable energy.

As the member for Kennedy knows, the process in terms of the future of the supply of power to the region, and whether it is a transmission line that comes from Townsville or it is generated locally, is very much part of a private sector process that the Queensland government is engaged in at the moment. I will certainly be encouraging my Queensland colleagues to facilitate that as quickly as possible, because an enormous amount of investment hangs off the decision that is taken in that process. But there is no doubt that putting in place the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, if it is passed by this House, will be one very important concrete step to facilitate the processes that flow from that, including extracting maximum value from our renewable energy target. So we must get that piece of legislation through the House.

There is an enormous potential in this region. This government, committed to working with the Queensland government, does hold very dear the objectives that he has outlined in his question today. The federal government and the Queensland government will continue to do everything we possibly can to put in place the framework to secure the objectives that the member for Kennedy has at the very core of his question. But the one thing that we need here is the passage of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme through the House to provide the stability and the certainty to essential investment in this very important sector, which goes to the core of our national prosperity and the core of prosperity in so many of our great regions of this country.