Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition government's commitment to reducing our emissions is no more apparent than it is in electorate of Parkes. Last Friday, along with representatives of AGL, we announced a $41 million battery to be constructed in Broken Hill. That is in conjunction with the wind farm at Silverton and the solar farm that's already at Broken Hill. This battery will allow greater efficiency and more reliability for the city of Broken Hill, particularly the mining sector, which relies so heavily on the electricity grid. That's just one of the things that's happening in the Parkes electorate. The Parkes electorate is doing more than its share to carry this country through the export of agricultural and mining resources.

With regard to reducing emissions, there's the program that we're funding to generate hydrogen from solar at Lake Cargelligo; the cobalt mine at Broken Hill, which will have 450 permanent jobs; the lithium mine at Fifield, which will have a similar amount of jobs, providing raw materials for batteries into the future; and the rare earths that are going to be mined from Dubbo. All of these commodities are highly sought after in modern technologies to reduce our emissions. That's not to mention the enormous contribution our farmers are making by sequestering larger amounts of carbon in the soil through their modern farming techniques. The Parkes electorate is leading the way in helping this country reduce its emissions.