Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Will the minister advise the House of action the government is taking to encourage new projects and jobs growth in Central Queensland? How does extreme green warfare present an obstacle to this goal?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Capricornia for her question. As the member would be well aware, the downturn in the mining sector has cost substantial numbers of jobs in Central Queensland.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley is warned!

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is why it is so important for new projects to be given the go-ahead as quickly as possible. We need to find ways to smooth the approvals process so that we can get jobs being created again in Central Queensland, building projects that will deliver for our nation in the long term. Of course there needs to be thorough and appropriate environmental consideration but we see the process being drawn out week after week, month after month, year after year by frivolous legal actions that are not about the substance of the issue but that are looking at legal technicalities to delay and delay. This is not some kind of accidental or community motivated process. The reality was that a prospectus was put out in November 2011 talking about an almost $1 million campaign to stop the Australian coal mining boom. This was a deliberate strategy. The strategy was circulated by Greenpeace, CoalSwarm and the Graeme Wood Foundation. Mentioned through the document were well known people like Drew Hutton, from Shut the Gate, who has been involved in every protest I can remember since my childhood. The reality is that these people have got a deliberate strategy, raising substantial amounts of money to stop projects. They outline in detail their intention to use legal processes to delay and delay until the proponents are eventually exhausted and walk away. They do not win the moral argument and they cost us jobs, but all they are interested in is delaying and delaying. After this recent case, which delays the Carmichael project yet again, the Queensland Labor minister demanded that the Commonwealth take action to fix the EPBC Act to prevent this kind of delaying activity continuing into the future. The Queensland government of course is having it both ways, because on the one hand they are funding the organisations that are running the protest, they have taken $400 million off infrastructure expenditure that was going to benefit from this project—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton will leave under 94(a). He has been warned twice.

The member for Moreton then left the chamber.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the other hand, the minister in Queensland, in the state Labor government, knows that these circumstances in the EPBC Act have the potential to delay and prevent projects from proceeding right across the state. We are about creating jobs. We want these projects to proceed. This project will create something like $20 billion or more in royalties for the state and taxes to the government, but it will also create 10,000 jobs—10,000 jobs that will be critical to the people of Central Queensland.