Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Although members of the Labor Party might think it boring that there have been 400,000 new jobs created in the Australian economy, it's something we should celebrate. In the electorate that I represent, Hughes, the unemployment rate is down to just 2.7 per cent. But we cannot take this for granted. There are grave risks to Australia's economic prosperity, and one of the gravest risks comes from the duplicity of the opposition leader over the Carmichael mine, telling Queensland miners he is pro coal while telling the extreme green left that he will revoke the mining licences if a Labor government is ever elected. What disastrous message does this send to international investors, when an investor can go through years of environmental approvals and tick every box, only to have a Labor government revoke a lawfully obtained mining licence?

No-one will ever be able to compute the damage that the Labor opposition leader has done, through his duplicity, to Australia's reputation as a safe place to invest. The editorial in The Australian today got it exactly right:

Rarely, if ever, has a major Australian political party had a leader whose main priorities were not strengthening the conditions for industry, jobs and exports to flourish. In the past few days, Bill Shorten has been exposed as such a leader.

Rank and file party and union members should be ashamed of him. (Time expired)