Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Trade and Investment. Will the minister please explain to the House the importance of trade agreements in stimulating much-needed investment, and how this will help transform areas like Australia's north, including my electorate of Solomon?

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Solomon, who helped host 350 Australian and overseas investors in Darwin over the past few days for the Northern Australia Investment Forum. I also express my gratitude to other members on both sides of the House, who helped in that promotion of investment over the last few days. The forum was a major success. We saw 250 very prominent investors with big cheque books from over 20 countries join us for the few days, and all had the opportunity to consider well over a 100 investment-ready projects across the north—Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

It is a historical fact when you deepen trade relationships, new investment inevitably follows, and of course the free trade deals with Japan, Korea and China, and the TPP have significantly deepened our trade relationships. This helps to explain the extraordinary level of interest in investment at the forum and in many other circles over the last year. One presentation at the forum I thought powerfully demonstrated what is in it for Australia from such foreign investment—this question is often asked, and I think it even has been asked this week in the House. I refer in particular to Mitsui Australia's CEO, Mr Takahashi, who told us that Mitsui established its first office in Sydney in 1901, Federation, and that in the 1950s and sixties Mitsui were involved in the coal industry, and were a pioneering investor and marketer for many coal projects, including Queensland's first export coal, Moura—its mine currently called Dawson—where they funded exploration works, invited partners to organise a JV, marketed the coal to Japan, and went on to many other mines. In the sixties and the seventies, they did the same for the iron ore industry, investing in Mount Newman and Robe River. In the seventies and eighties they again pioneered, developing Salt and LNG. They were, again, at the early stage of another major development for our country.

Mitsui has been a powerful force at the beginning of our two biggest mining exports now—iron ore and coal—and our biggest energy export LNG. Today, they are also involved in Australia in machinery, infrastructure, chemicals, food, resources and many more. Foreign investment has been a very huge power in driving innovation and growth over all of our history.