Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During COVID, when the nation largely shut down, there were two sectors in particular that kept the lights on, kept exports going and kept our nation's economy afloat. They were agriculture and resources. All too often in this place—and elsewhere, for that matter—the resources sector is demonised, particularly by those opposite. Whilst I appreciate that the Minister for Resources, the member for Brand, made a statement on resources, which was an important speech, and whilst she talks up the resources sector in question time—and good on her for that—there's not a lot of solidarity amongst those opposite who talk out of one side of their mouth about the resources sector in this place and talk out the other side of their mouth whenever they are talking about it to constituents in their electorates.

I do not earnestly believe that those opposite understand what role digging things up out of the ground truly plays in our country. But don't just take my word for it. Tania Constable, Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Council, said on 9 February this year:

Mining continues to support jobs, the economy and government spending on essential services during difficult times for Australian families.

Trade data for 2022 reveals record export revenue which will generate substantial tax and royalty returns, higher wages and strong regional communities.

She talked about the country areas that would, but for the resources sector, be largely ghost towns. Kanowna—a little place in Western Australia not far from a major Western Australian resource capital, which the member for O'Connor proudly represents—is indeed now a ghost town. A hundred years ago it was a thriving place. Once the resources were exhausted in Kanowna, the people went away and the town became a place with nothing more than tumbleweeds rolling down the once-paved streets. What we don't want to see under those opposite is policies that are going to lead to many more once-vibrant resource towns become nothing but places for tumbleweeds blowing down what were once busy main streets.

We want to see our resources sector continue to employ hundreds of thousands of people. Indeed, the resources sector directly employs more than 270,000 Australians. Its indirect employment is more than 700,000, over and above those numbers of full-time equivalents. The sector paid more than $37.2 billion in wages and salaries last year. That's straight into Australian households. That's straight into the pockets of hardworking Australians. Even those in capital cities enjoy the benefits of having a strong resources sector. You can often find many of them at protests against the resources sector. You can often find many of them outside the confines of this place on any given sitting day protesting about coal and gas, protesting about the very industry that keeps their lights on and keeps their coffee percolator boiling of a morning.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who would do that?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, the Greens would do that. The member for Brisbane and his colleagues would do that, Member for Gippsland. I don't want to single him out—I just did! But the Greens want to completely destroy our mining sector, and yet the mining sector has done great things for our nation. The mining sector has been demonised and criticised so unfairly by the Greens and others, including almost all of those opposite. The mining sector is set to deliver $459 billion in export earnings over 2022-23, strengthening our budget and delivering funding for roads, schools and hospitals right across the country. Our nation could not do without the mining sector, and yet the mining sector cops so much unfair criticism. It's a sector which makes up over 13 per cent of our GDP and pays over $68.6 billion in company tax.

We so often hear those jealous beings who go on and on about how mining companies don't pay enough tax and mining magnates don't contribute. And yet the mining companies, and the people who put on hi-vis and helmets with torches on top—and not only them but those who work in administration, in white-collar jobs associated with the mining industry—do so much for our nation. But for them, we couldn't keep the lights on and we wouldn't be able to pay for all the state schools and public hospitals. The mining sector helps to underpin those things.

Speaking of underpinning, it was the mining sector which helped this nation continue to have a good books balance during COVID-19, when just about every other industry shut, when just about every other industry closed its doors, and everybody, Greens included, pulled the doona up and thought, 'Let's just ride this out.' It was those people who donned the high-vis vests—and those who went into the shearing sheds—and worked like they always do who helped this country out of the mire that we were in.

Tania Constable, in her February speech, mentioned the statistics. In financial year 2022, coal contributed $141 billion. It was up 123 per cent. Iron ore contributed $123 billion, and gold contributed $23 billion—and a shout-out to the goldmining efforts at Lake Cowal, near West Wyalong in my electorate, and also Northparkes mine. Aluminium—alumina and bauxite—also contributed significantly, with $15 billion, up 14 per cent, and copper contributed $12 billion. These are big numbers. These are big employers. They should absolutely be lauded by those opposite, but the government come here and they have two faces. They'll take the money and use it on their programs—and good on them. They're the government now. They're in government shore to shore on mainland Australia.

I look with great anticipation to see if the government will continue to do such things as paving the Outback Way. The Outback Way is Australia's Route 66, Australia's longest shortcut—2,719 kilometres, linking up Laverton in WA and Winton in Queensland. Winton, of course, is famous for being where Banjo Paterson wrote 'Waltzing Matilda', is famous for Qantas and is famous as an outback Queensland community. That Outback Way is going to help our mining community. We had a pathway to fully seal that road. I hope that those opposite recognise and acknowledge important roads—not just the Outback Way, but roads in the Beetaloo basin, the Bowen Basin, the Galilee Basin and in all of those rich mining areas that are going to prove so beneficial in the future. Whether it's Kalgoorlie—and I mentioned Kanowna earlier—or any of those other amazing and remarkable mining communities in Western Australia and right across this country, certainly in Queensland, they have led the way. They have helped pay for the significant debt that we incurred during COVID.

But what did that significant debt do? I hear those opposite so often say: 'What did we get for the money? What did we get for the debt?' They talk about a trillion dollars worth of Liberal Party debt. It's nowhere near a trillion dollars, but I'll tell you what the debt enabled us to do. It enabled us to keep 55,000 Australians alive, and, if ever there was a good investment to make during COVID, it was in keeping Australians alive. When we were confronted with the possibility that up to 55,000 Australians were going to die in the first few months of COVID, they were worrying times. We put in place the policies to keep Australians alive and safe, and to make sure we kept industries such as agriculture and mining going. It was mining and agriculture, and the regions, and country Australia, and rural and regional and particularly remote Australians, that kept this nation safe and kept the lights on—and good on them for doing it! Thank you to the mining industry.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few brief comments about Australia's resources sector. You should never forget—and I don't just mean you, Madam Deputy Speaker Ananda-Rajah; I mean all those listening—just what happened during COVID, as the previous speaker, the member for Riverina, pointed out. The forecast around the world was that economies were collapsing, jobs were unavailable and people were being locked up. Australia's own resources sector had a forecast of under $240 billion GDP. Currently that forecast is almost $460 billion. There is no other industry in this country that can make that type of contribution, that type of increase, in that short period of time. It employs over 1.2 million Australians directly and indirectly—not 10,000, not 20,000, not 100,000 but over one million.

We should be supporting this sector because this sector is how we pay our bills. It is this sector that contributes significantly to the tax intake. It is this sector through which royalties are provided to the states. It is this sector that is allowing for roads, schools, hospitals and our education system to be funded. Commitments have to be paid for, and the way you do that is you grow your economy and you grow opportunities. But what we've seen this week, in the dirty deal struck in the Greens-Labor government, will directly impact the resources sector. We have seen the Leader of the Greens walk out and say this will shut $90 billion worth of projects. I say to all those individuals who might be listening to the Federation Chamber today: think about the last time you saw a $5 billion, $10 billion or $15 billion project anywhere near where you live. They are very few and far between, and generally they come from the resources sector.

Imagine Queensland without the gas industry. Imagine Western Australia without the North West Shelf. This country has successfully utilised offshore resources for more than five decades. Victoria's manufacturing success almost singly owes a debt to the Bass Strait. The Bass Strait gasfields are depleted. There is less gas and less availability, and that means less gas for manufacturing. We've seen Premier Dan Andrews out there squealing and howling at the moon about how they need more gas in Victoria, yet there has been a moratorium in Victoria for 10 years. If you don't develop gas resources you run out of gas; that is what happens. We have now seen Premier Andrews call for Queensland's export gas to be sent to Victoria to maintain Victoria's manufacturing. It is not physically possible. There is not enough infrastructure. It would need to be built, and it cannot be delivered for the same price as that very cheap gas out of the Bass Strait.

It has been an enormous advantage for this country. But the deal that we have seen done, in my view, puts at risk some of the biggest projects which have taken a FID, final investment decision, in this country. Scarborough, in the North West Shelf, is worth roughly $15 billion. Dorado is the biggest oil find in the last three decades. In a country where our fuel reliability is decreasing and where we need more assets, and when we are living in a world which, in my view, is much more dangerous than it was 20 years ago, we need to secure Australia's energy future and we need to make sure that we have those assets available in this country.

We hear those opposite constantly harping on about manufacturing in Australia. You don't make a lot in this country if you don't have cheap gas and you don't have cheap electricity. Gas is a feedstock for so many products, including fertiliser. You only have to look at the price of urea around the world right now to know what happens. When Australian coal wasn't going to China, they converted to gas for their electricity supply and it shorted their market and drove up the price of urea—and that drives up the cost of food, that fundamental thing that Australians need.

This dirty deal, in my view, puts at risk Barossa. Barossa is halfway through and is currently stopped because of a court direction after it had all the approvals done. This is a $5 billion project, bringing 600 jobs to Darwin and a 20-year life extension for Darwin LNG. In those three projects alone, you have tens of billions of dollars worth of investment. That is without the 18 onshore mining projects that were recalled by the Minister for the Environment and Water. They already had approvals and are now being reassessed. Can you imagine that, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you were on the board of a multibillion dollar company looking to determine where you should invest next?

Australia's reputation throughout COVID was not only maintained but enhanced. It was enhanced because of the hardworking men and women in the resources sector who made sure our reputation for reliability, for supply, for delivery and for meeting contracts was kept. We now see countries like Japan out there in the press, and for a country like Japan to be making any of those statements publicly is appalling. They have relied on this country successfully for their energy supply for decades, and the fact that they are even concerned about this should worry every Australian, because it does damage our reputation. Why would people invest here if they get halfway through a project, as we've seen with Santos's Barossa project, and have it removed because the Environmental Defenders Office went off to the court and found a reason to stop it? It is just really easy.

This sector delivers jobs. It strengthens our economy. It provides more opportunities. It's how we train our kids. We actually saw a massive increase—thousands—of apprentices and trainees put through the resources sector during the COVID period, because it was the right thing to do. That gives those kids an opportunity to learn a trade, to take up traineeships and to have an opportunity for their future. But to have jobs you have to keep maintaining what is a depleting field somewhere else. You simply cannot shift gas around this country and be cost competitive. It is an enormous country. It's a very, very long distance. It is incredibly difficult to maintain.

Look at what's happening in the Beetaloo. We keep seeing the Greens howling at the moon. It is the biggest gas play in the world. It will give jobs to people that live in the Northern Territory. It will add to their GDP. It would allow them to pay for roads and hospitals that they desperately need. We need to continue developing Australia's resources sector because it's the right thing to do for our economy, it's the right thing to do for our kids and it's the right thing to do for our governments.

We can't play both sides of the deck on this—we simply cannot—because confidence is everything to business. If you are making multibillion dollar investments in this country, you have to have absolute confidence that incoming governments, regardless of their stripe, won't simply stop your projects because of their ideology. But that is what we are seeing. We are seeing people like the Leader of the Greens publicly saying there is a pipeline of almost $100 billion in projects that will be stopped because of the deal that has been done. How is that in Australia's interest? It is not in our national interest. It hurts our reputation and it hurts the people who have been out there for many decades working hard and contributing to our economy. It is the wrong decision to make.

In the October budget last year we saw Labor cuts across the board. We saw $2.4 billion taken out of the state hospital funding, which sank like a stone—I didn't see it on the front page of the paper—but it's there, and if you go and have a look at the AMA's press release it says exactly what has been taken out. We saw cuts to what we put in to support development of gas basins across this country because they need to be developed. It's how we build our economy, particularly in the regions.

If you want to see something which impacts one area and not others, it is the resources sector, because those jobs are in regional Australia and regional towns. Regardless of whether you're at Tieri or at Moranbah, at Lithgow or even in Newcastle—a big major centre on the coast—a lot of their economy and jobs rely on the resources sector. Some of them are one-mine towns, and without that employer there is no hairdresser or baker or shopping centre down the road, because there is no-one to buy anything. So the impact on regional Australia is much higher than it is anywhere else.

For those in the city, who might have more available cash than others, I say: knock yourself out. Good luck to you. It's okay for you to pay more for power. It's okay for you to pay more for cars. It's okay to buy an electric vehicle. If that suits your lifestyle, knock yourself out. But where we come from, we need vehicles that go very long distances, are incredibly reliable and can manage in all sorts of conditions, because that's where we live.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We also need the environment!

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We hear interjections about the environment. I've got to say the guarantees that are held by state governments for miners are extraordinary, yet, when they come to end of life, they go back and rehab it and you can't tell the difference. I've been to any number of these locations, whether it's McArthur River in the north or whether it's any of the ones in inland New South Wales. They have sold a high-quality product right around the world because people need it. It is why they come to Australia. It's why our economy has been so strong. Here, we see a Green-Labor deal that will damage our reputation, damage our economy and result in fewer jobs and fewer opportunities for Australians into the future. That is why I oppose it, and so do the coalition, and we will continue to do that. Our decisions will be based on the national interest, not the ideology of the Greens, not a dirty Green-Labor deal and not those individuals out there howling at the moon. We make practical decisions because it is necessary. These are jobs that matter in regional Australia, and that's why we fight for them.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have great pleasure in joining the debate on the statement by the Minister for Resources, and I congratulate the former minister for his very thoughtful contribution on the social and economic value to our nation of the resources sector. I must say it surprises me that, when I look at the speaking list for this particular statement, I can't find anyone here from the Labor Party or the Greens willing to talk in relation to the resources sector. That surprises me. It is such a critical industry to the future of our nation. The former minister explained in very good detail how, when we faced the challenges of the pandemic, there was one industry, the resources sector, which kept operating, kept cash flowing into our nation, kept people employed and kept our nation moving during some of the darkest times. It's now an industry worth in the order of $460 billion per year. It's an industry which is actually paying for our primary schools, our secondary schools and the roads and hospitals we want, but it's an industry which, I find, in this place, is often maligned by those opposite. When the current minister speaks in question time, the silence on the other side is deafening. The way members opposite are suddenly very interested in their iPhones or iPads, and can't even bring themselves to murmur, 'Hear, hear!' when the minister talks in support of the industry, is quite interesting to watch from our side of the chamber. She has more support on the coalition side of the chamber than she does amongst her own backbench colleagues. I think she's a very good minister. I think she does her best in a portfolio which has no love whatsoever amongst the Labor-Greens alliance.

The minerals resources sector is such a critical part of our nation's past but also our nation's future. I speak with some level of authority in this regard, representing the Latrobe Valley energy sector. Keep in mind, 100 years ago Sir John Monash helped form the State Electricity Commission of Victoria. It is the reliable, affordable base load energy out of the Latrobe Valley, over that past 100 years, which has provided the extraordinary wealth of much of the south-east of Australia and certainly of the manufacturing sector of Victoria. Without that reliable, affordable energy coming from the Latrobe Valley, Victoria would look nothing like it does today. I am deeply worried when I look at those who represent the Labor Party, who used to represent blue-collar workers. Their silence on the issues around transition and the way power station workers are being treated in the Latrobe Valley right now is extraordinary for me to witness, as a local member of parliament. I cannot find a Labor Party member of parliament willing to stand up for blue-collar workers in the Latrobe Valley. It's no wonder that the seat the Labor Party held with great distinction for 40 years, the seat of Morwell, they now haven't held for more than 20 years, because they have gone missing when it comes to blue-collar workers in the mining and resources sector.

The previous speaker also mentioned the joint venture partners in Bass Strait. If you want to see an example of where the resources sector has made an incredible contribution to a small regional town, you need to go no further than the city of Sale. In the mid-sixties, joint venture partners in the Bass Strait, Esso and BHP, started realising the oil and gas deposits were world class and were able to be secured and supplied throughout south-east Australia. That industry has given generations of young Gippslanders the capacity to invest in our town, to invest in their family's future, to secure their family's future in the Gippsland and Latrobe Valley area. It has been an extraordinary contribution to the wealth of the Gippsland region. Without it, we would not have seen the training and trade opportunities, the helicopter pilots, the maintenance crews working on the helicopters, and the people working at the gas plant in Longford.

If you're wondering whether that industry's important, let's think back to that terrible day when lives were lost at the Longford gas plant, and Melbourne didn't have gas and how Melbourne reacted to that interruption in supply—think back to that tragic day when lives were lost at Longford, and how that was received in Melbourne when they could no longer have hot showers. These are the things that people need to understand. While the mining and resources sector is critical to, provides jobs to and underpins the economic future of our regional areas, it's also critical to our cities as well, and that's often misunderstood in this place.

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Pilbara. I was invited to go and check out the mining operations of FMG at the Cloudbreak mine. We flew in from Perth. It's quite a sight to see when you turn up at the airport in Perth at five o'clock in the morning and you're wearing casual clothes and you are well and truly the odd one out because everyone else is wearing hi-vis. We flew a couple of hours from Perth to the mine site, and we saw that operation up close and the incredible investment in our nation's future which is occurring there. The operations at FMG really do need to be seen to be believed—the scale of those operations and the way the ore is extracted, processed on site, put into trains and transferred to Port Hedland and then into ships, off to earn the wealth for our nation.

The most impressive part of that experience, though, was to talk to the workers who are out there and to understand why they're there. They are often enduring—on the day we were there, it was 44 degrees—tough conditions: the heat, the flies and the dust. But they're securing their own family's future by doing shifts, sometimes four days off and three days on—flying in and flying out, or living closer at Port Hedland. They appreciate the support they received in this place from the previous government, and they're worried about whether the new government is going to offer the same level of support for the resources sector. So I call on those opposite to take the time to appreciate and understand the importance of the resources sector and to understand that it plays such a critical role in the social and economic future of regional communities.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For some time I've been considering, wondering and pondering whether only one of the major participants in our national democracy is prepared to back resources in, and this debate is proving to be evidence of that fact. We have a speaker's list this morning that is jam-packed with coalition members—members from the Liberal Party and from their coalition partners, the National Party—who are, one after another, standing to their pins and speaking about the importance of the resources sector to Australia, our national interest and our fiscal position. Not one member opposite is prepared to stand and speak to this statement. Australians need no further evidence about who's on the side of Australian resources and who's on the side of Australian resource workers. It's evident here in the chamber. Members opposite can stand and talk about the importance of this sector; the opportunity is there.

I'm pleased the member for Hawke has found his voice! I thought the member for Moncrieff had taken it from him! But the reality is that, often, complex issues can be distilled down to very simple questions. My simple question for those opposite is this—and I want to take an earlier interjection: 'What about emissions reduction?' Okay, what about emissions reduction? Those opposite, I think, would agree that, if we are to move towards an energy mix that has a greater dependence on renewable energy, then a large component of that will be resources like—let's pick aluminium. There'll be greater demand, not less, for aluminium into the future. What does this safeguard mechanism do with respect to aluminium production in Australia? The answer is quite simple: it will ultimately move the refining effort offshore. This isn't a safeguard mechanism; it’s a straightjacket for Australian manufacturers, particularly in the mining and resource sector. Let me explain. What we have at the moment is an aluminium sector in our country which sees the ore extracted. It's then refined and utilised. Those opposite want a situation where the ore is extracted and shipped overseas; there's the first additional footprint. It'll be processed in jurisdictions overseas—jurisdictions which, I'm prepared to bet, don't have the kind of regulatory frameworks and environment that you see here in Australia, jurisdictions where there isn't the kind of preoccupation around carbon emission reduction. The first thing we've done is extracted the ore and shipped it overseas and created a greater footprint. Then we've put it in a manufacturing facility overseas, which creates a bigger footprint. Then, of course, we create a yet larger footprint by bringing it back to Australia. This is where the ideological chest beating comes into direct conflict with the business reality. Those opposite want to be able to beat their chests and say, 'Look at us'. We see the peacock feathers unfurled every day in question time as the minister walks to the dispatch box, but he's not thinking about the real world consequences. The real world consequences of this measure will result in—as it relates, in my respectful submission, to aluminium production—a greater level of emissions, not a reduction.

I remember back when we used to talk about emissions intensive import-exposed industries. There's been no discussion about that in this debate. There has been some suggestion that there will be a fund available for the large polluters, notwithstanding the fact that the Senate is asking question after question, seeking the detail—doesn't that sound familiar—but getting no answers; that exercise will be guillotined today.

This isn't just a building in the hill; it's a place where Australians get to know. Australians want to know. They want to know what's going to happen to the aluminium sector in Australia. Not far from my electorate is the smelter at Portland, in the member for Wannon's electorate. The people who work in that facility want to know. They want to know if they're going to be sacrificed on the altar of environmental utopia. The reality is that it may well be, following the science, that the most appropriate thing to do is to increase aluminium production in Australia. But that's not the kind of nuance that this safeguard measure works towards. This safeguard measure is just about creating a box that those opposite can tick so that the minister, who walks into the chamber question time after question time, thrusts his chest out and unfurls the peacock feathers, can feel satisfied about what he has done.

It's not just aluminium; I think we all have to accept that copper is going to play a more and more significant role in relation to renewables. There is four times the amount of copper in an electric vehicle than there is in an internal combustion engine. If we want a future that relies on a greater mix of renewable energies then we're going to need to back the resources sector. That copper will be extracted. It'll be refined. It'll be produced. But the question for those opposite is: will it be produced in Australia, or are we going to import it from overseas? The minister talks about being, I think his phrase is, 'an Australia that makes stuff again'. Well, I've got a message for the minister. My electorate makes stuff every day. We've been doing it since before Federation and we want to keep doing it. We don't want laws that prevent us from doing it for no reasonable or sensible objective.

Nobody here wants to take an approach relative to the environment that causes harm, but the point is that there's very little point putting a straitjacket on an Australian aluminium producer only to see that effort exported overseas in an environment where we see greater levels of carbon emissions. That's crazy. That's not in the national interest and it's not in the interest of those communities where the majority of these manufacturing facilities and mining resources exist.

In the last 90 seconds I have the attention of the chamber I want to say: if those opposite were genuine, if those opposite had the kind of conviction that members of the Greens have—and I'm not lauding them; I'm just saying that if they had that conviction which seems to be so important to those opposite—then they would do us a favour and not rely on resource revenue in the upcoming May budget. It's one thing to say: 'We're going to end with coal and gas no longer being mined in this country. That's our long-term objective.' You can't do that on the one hand and then on the other hand gleefully accept the rivers of revenue that arrive prebudget for our nation to expend.

Those on this side of the chamber are academically honest about this. We support the mining and resources sector. We thank them for the work they do. We acknowledge the very significant contribution that they make to the national interest but also to the lifestyles of every Australian. We owe a great debt to our mining sector. We owe a great debt to our miners. We owe a great debt to those who have established the industry. I am one who is prepared to stand up for them.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Grey it gives me great pleasure to talk on anything to do with resources. As I've told this place before—and I don't want to bore people—the electorate of Grey does cover 92.4 per cent of South Australia, an area substantially bigger than New South Wales, and consequently it has at least 92.4 per cent of South Australia's resources. In fact, every major mine in the state sits within my jurisdiction, so I have a great association with that industry.

To pick up the member for Barker's comments, there is some considerable concern in the industry at the moment, particularly about the impact of the safeguard mechanism on the refining and value-adding of our ores here in Australia. We have a few stand-out facilities—and I'll come back to BHP and the Olympic Dam operation in a moment. Production of copperplate, uranium yellowcake, gold and silver happens in what we used to call the MetPlant at Olympic Dam. It has now got a different name. It's a very real and complete operation. Of course, like most of these operations, at this stage it does require at least an amount of carbon emissions to operate, as does the mine.

In Port Pirie we have the Nyrstar smelter. It's now 100 per cent owned by Trafigura. That has been a very good takeover. Nyrstar was in trouble financially and Trafigura was a bigger company that had a substantial interest. You will understand this very well, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie, because you have the other half of the equation sitting in your electorate. In fact, it's worth remarking that, until sometime in the late 1980s, the slag, the waste from the facility in your electorate, was dumped at sea. When those tighter restrictions came in something had to be done with that. It found its way to the Port Pirie smelter, where they were allowed to extract enough out of the slag to pay for the processing, and they ended up with a much more benign product. You understand as well as I do that these are interdependent facilities. I welcome the investment that has come to Port Pirie. But to think that the standard regulations do not provide a real challenge now for Nyrstar and Trafigura would be to pull the wool over one's eyes. I'm hoping the government will listen carefully to what they have to say—I know they've been doing some lobbying around the building—and take account of the speed at which they will be able to adapt.

I don't think we have to stretch the imagination to know that things are already tough enough in Australia, to compete in that world market, without having to pay firstly a $75 fine for purchasing carbon credits and then, in the almost certain event that the carbon credit market will be short, being hit with a $275 fine per tonne of carbon emissions. If that occurs I have great concerns for some of these facilities that sit within my electorate, and I think all of Australia would be concerned if it led to offshoring, to exporting our carbon emissions.

In Whyalla we have Sanjeev Gupta's GFG Alliance, in steel manufacturing. I know Mr Gupta; I've met him a lot of times. He is very keen to convert his operations to green steel and has made some announcements in the past, and I think we have some coming in the near future. But to think that this is an easy pathway in the time line of 2030—with an almost five per cent reduction a year, it is going to be very challenging indeed. As with all these investment decisions, we all think the announcement leads to almost immediate construction but of course it doesn't; there will be a million hurdles to get through before that happens, and very few of these projects are able to proceed on time.

To come back to the resources industry in Grey and Roxby Downs: Olympic Dam is a standout. It is the fourth-largest deposit of copper in the world, but, interestingly, it is the largest single deposit of uranium. But the body is substantially copper, so uranium is a by-product. It needs to be extracted and processed here in Australia, otherwise we would not be able to export it; under our regulations on nuclear nonproliferation, we would not be able to export that copper concentrate. So it needs to be extracted here. They also extract gold and silver—a bit over 150,000 ounces of gold a year—so it's not an insubstantial goldmine either. It's an absolute ripper.

There are almost 5,000 people who live in Roxby Downs; it's a jewel in the middle of the desert, if you like. I congratulate BHP for their commitment there. They are also proving up the deposits at a place called Oak Dam, and the story is that it could be a deposit of equal size to Roxby Downs—and there are likely to be more in that part of the Gawler craton. I look forward to that, but once again I need to make the point that we cannot allow obstacles to be put in their path that would not allow for this to go forward.

In the same general area we have OZ Minerals with two wonderful mines—one at Prominent Hill and one at Carrapateena. I visited Carrapateena quite recently. Carrapateena employs around 800 people—a very slick and tidy operation. It is another underground operation just like Roxby Downs. The uranium levels in the ore do not mean they need to process it here in Australia; it is concentrated and exported in that form. At the moment BHP has a takeover bid on the table for Carrapateena; we'll have to wait and see how that goes. OZ Minerals have been a wonderful success, and I congratulate them, as I have done in this place many times, on their Indigenous employment program, which I think as is as good as I have seen in the mining industry.

Out west of Ceduna we have the Jacinth-Ambrose mine, which primarily produces zircon. That is quite a large operation as well—and we see those quad road trains coming into Ceduna 24 hours a day—and exports out of Thevenard. Some 50 kilometres west of Thevenard is a gypsum mine. It's at a place called Kevin. That produces, to my knowledge, about 80 per cent of the material Australia needs to produce gyprock or plasterboard or whatever you want to call it. There are some issues in the coastal shipping act, which is a challenge for them, but, having said that, the gypsum, the Cheetham Salt production platform in the same area, the Jacinth-Ambrosia mine and the grain industry on western Eyre Peninsula actually make Thevenard the biggest port in South Australia. It's a fairly shallow water port, but we are hoping for a deep dredge there to get bigger vessels in in the near future.

I want to move along quickly and cover off on some of the other deposits that sit within Grey and are being mined. The Middleback Range, of course, is the first place that iron ore was mined in Australia. Iron Knob was the birthplace of the iron ore industry and the birthplace of the Australian steel industry. I may be wrong on that last one. I think maybe the eastern seaboard was operating first, but, anyway, we're still mining there and still producing eight to 10 million tonnes a year. The majority of that is for export, but the rest is going directly into the steel plant. It is a very important mine. We also have some very good prospects coming on in the Grey electorate. We have the Great White Kaolin Project. Kaolin is a very fine clay for the manufacture of pots, and that project will have a very good export focus. That will happen up around the Poochera area, or Streaky Bay for those who are not quite so familiar with the topography.

We are looking at underground gasification at Leigh Creek to produce syngas for the production of urea. That might sound like it's a little bit experimental, but I tell you what: if they can land it, it will have an enormous benefit in terms of Australia's emissions, and it will produce an onshore production platform for urea, which, as we know, is one of the sovereign challenges for Australia. Only in the last couple of years we were worried about not having the additive for our fuel trucks, for instance. I could go on. There are many things happening in Grey and more projects in the pipeline. It's a very important area for industry indeed.

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

I too rise today to speak about the resources statement to parliament. I'm very proud of the record of the Parkes electorate for being a powerhouse in mining and resources for a long, long time. If we start at the western part of my electorate, at Broken Hill—the home of BHP and still an incredibly active mining town—apart from the traditional silver, lead and zinc, we now have the start of new industries. We've got Cobalt Blue's Broken Hill Cobalt Project at Thackaringa, which will supply cobalt for modern needs, like battery production, electronics and the like. Close to Broken Hill, we've also got the Hawsons Iron project. Magnetite is the raw material that is to be used for what's known as green steel—steel that's produced with lower carbon emissions. To the west of Broken Hill is the mining of gold as well. Moving further east, around the Cobar and Nyngan area, there are quite a few very active mines in the copper industry. The demand for copper is growing exponentially, with the explosion of electric vehicles, and there are more projects being developed. There is a wonderful story of a local farmer purchasing a very basic metal detector and finding quite a large deposit that will be developed into a large mine.

We also have huge deposits of lithium in a little village area called Fifield, which is down towards Condobolin. Once again, lithium is a very, very important raw material for battery production. It is hoped that we may even develop into producing the batteries close to site, because one of the issues with lithium is that it is formed on site as a slurry. If it has to be dried out for transportation and then turned back into a slurry for manufacture, that's not a particularly effective way of doing it. So there's a lot of work going on down there now, securing water for the mining production and the like.

There are also massive gold deposits around the Dubbo area and down at Tomingley. The goldmine there has been a wonderful investment and produced large quantities of gold. Indeed, the expansion of that Tomingley goldmine will probably lead to the relocation of the Newell Highway some five kilometres to the west because, as fate would have it, the new gold seam is actually directly underneath the Newell Highway. So there's a lot of excitement about those prospects. There have also been large gold deposits located to the east of Dubbo very recently.

One of the most exciting projects, though, is the rare earth project at Toongi, which is about 30 kays east of Dubbo. It has a lot of the minerals that are essential not only for the manufacture of electric vehicles but also in defence and in aircraft manufacture. I won't pretend to name them all, because they've got names that I'm not particularly familiar with, but I know one of them when mixed with aluminium considerably strengthens the product, and you can significantly lighten the weight of, for instance, an aircraft without reducing its strength.

If we're going to be serious about having a cleaner environment and reducing our emissions, we have to look at all of these things. In country areas it's not just a matter of paying farmers to plant trees. That is the laziest, most ineffective and ultimately most unproductive way of treating this issue. It is through our efficiency and our technology that we will become a more effective, cleaner and wealthier economy.

Up in the eastern part of my electorate, in the Gunnedah Basin, around Narrabri and Gunnedah, we have a coal industry that goes back over 100 years. They have been mining coal at Gunnedah since the 1800s. More recently, we've seen some developments with some larger mines at Maules Creek and the Idemitsu mine at Boggabri. There is potential for another mine just to the south of there, which is in the process of being developed at the moment.

I get very frustrated when people rail against coal in this place. Our colleagues in the Greens love to rail against coal. The irony of it is that the Maules Creek coal—low in sulphur, low in ash—is largely exported to Japan, because when Japan lost their nuclear generators through the tsunami they didn't replace them with nuclear; they replaced them with efficient, low-emissions coal-fired power stations. They're getting emissions from the Narrabri coal similar to those from gas in Japan. The irony of all that is that when you buy your Prius, to show how much you care for the environment, it may have been made from energy created by coal from my electorate.

We don't live in a mythical place where we can just wish things without understanding their practical nature. It's a bit like people who want to eat the sausage but just don't want to see how it's made. Energy is the same, and mining is the same. The member for Melbourne, who leads the charge against mining coal and gas, lives in an electorate that is completely altered. How does he think those high-rise buildings were constructed? Where did the raw materials come from for that? His river is in concrete—he doesn't even have a natural river—and yet he wants to change things so that, in my electorate, industries that have been underpinning this economy, this country, for over 100 years will be wiped out. He wants to see them wiped out. He has no regard for the jobs of the people in my electorate.

The hypocrisy rolls out to our colleagues the teals. The member for North Sydney and the member for Mackellar were so incensed about the possibility of a coal seam gas operation in the Pilliga forest that they had to go and see for themselves. Did they take the Tesla? No, no. They hired a big helicopter—not just a normal old Robinson but a big one with two motors—to go to the wilds of the Parkes electorate to see the concern about what a gas industry would mean. The irony of that is that that gas is destined to go to a power station in the Hunter to help with the fluctuations that renewables bring in and balance them out. It will ultimately keep the lights on in their electorates.

The frustration in this place is that we end up having to fight to save people from themselves. Mining and agriculture are two industries that not only drive my electorate but kept this country afloat during the pandemic. They are the reason that Australia is as strong as it is. Australia has two things. Australia can produce food for itself and other nations around the world and it has the resources and cheap energy to make things. We're having a battle now, where we have members from the leafy suburbs trying to close down the very things that create the wealth that generated the environments where they live. I stand up for the resources sector, and I was pleased to speak on this statement.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the motion to take note of the ministerial statement by the Minister for Resources. I follow the member for Parkes, and I note that my father was born in his electorate, in Broken Hill. His father, my grandfather, worked as a mining engineer his whole career. He was educated in Adelaide and moved, soon after he married my grandmother, to Broken Hill, and my father and his three siblings were all born in Broken Hill and grew up there. My grandfather joined the Royal Engineers for the period of the Second World War, then returned to Broken Hill and continued to work at North Broken Hill mine until the mid-fifties, when he went to Mount Isa to work at MIM, Mount Isa Mines, which briefly, I think—after my grandfather finished there—was the largest company in Australia, by market capitalisation on the share market. That was during a period at the beginning of the 1980s. It is still an extremely significant mine, for a variety of resources—copper, lead, nickel, zinc and gold—much like the Broken Hill deposit that my grandfather worked at. He was general manager of capital works at both of those mines. And my father's first job out of university in Queensland was also with Mount Isa Mines, driving underground locomotives, which is probably done by remote control now, or some kind of robotic technology. But in the early 1970s his first job was driving locomotives underground. When my grandfather passed away, I remember finding in his garage, amongst a whole variety of hoarded things, an enormous chest of keys with tags on them. They were keys for every individual mineshaft, gate and locking mechanism throughout old MIM. I think Dad ended up donating them to the company, with some other collectables. So my family has a connection to the mining industry, much like our nation has a connection to the mining industry.

Adelaide, my home city, is very much in existence thanks to, firstly, the agricultural sector and, secondly, the mining sector. The member for Grey talked about the enormous contribution that mining is currently making in his electorate, which is 90 per cent of the state of South Australia, as it has contributed in the past. I mentioned Broken Hill. Without being too controversial, Broken Hill really is a satellite of South Australia, despite being in New South Wales. Adelaide is the nearest major metropolitan centre to Broken Hill, and I'd be more than happy for Broken Hill to be relocated to South Australia, particularly for the historical value of the mining royalties commensurately paid across to us from the government of New South Wales! But I concede that's (a) not up for debate here and (b) not very likely to happen.

I pay tribute to the mining industry and what it's doing in my home state of South Australia. But I also look at it as an opportunity. Mining and resources are going to make an enormous contribution as we have an energy transition and decarbonise our economy. The sorts of things that are going to be vital for that transition are the minerals that are required to fire the manufacturing and the technology that will achieve that transition—none more so than copper. Copper is the most fundamental metal for anything regarding electricity and electrification, as we all know. In South Australia we've got an enormous copper mine, the Olympic Dam deposit. It's sometimes identified as being a uranium mine because, of course, it is. It's the largest uranium deposit in the world. But the copper that's mined there, from a value point of view, is just as, if not more, significant to the operations of BHP there at Olympic Dam.

That mine was a controversial development at the time. The Labor Party were very split on allowing that mine to proceed in the seventies. A former member for Sturt, Mr Norman Foster, won the seat in 1969 and lost the seat at the next election, in 1972, to another Liberal predecessor of mine, Ian Wilson. It was the only seat won from the Labor Party in that election—an impressive feat. Norman Foster went on to serve in the South Australian upper house as a Labor member but was expelled from the Labor Party for supporting the Tonkin Liberal government's bill to allow the Olympic Dam mine to proceed. The Labor Party didn't support uranium mining then.

The Olympic Dam mine is the most significant business in my home state of South Australia now. It underpins the resources sector. It underpins all of the major regional towns that provide services to Olympic Dam. It has provided an opportunity for other significant deposits, like Carrapateena, the OZ Minerals mine, to proceed. It is now one of the biggest copper mines in the world. It is a very significant part of BHP's portfolio. It is earning hundreds of millions of dollars—billions of dollars, actually—in exports for our economy.

As the member for Grey pointed out, while Olympic Dam is the most significant deposit in the nation, there are probably a number of commensurate deposits co-located in the general vicinity. There's the Oak Dam exploration that is being undertaken right now. Most of the geologists, and BHP themselves, have to be very careful about what they say publicly from a market point of view and a stock market point of view. They are very cautiously foreshadowing that the Oak Dam deposit potentially could be commensurate with the Olympic Dam deposit. That would be absolutely transformational—if that confirmation occurs through the exploration activity that they're doing up there. Of course, that again is going to be copper, and copper is a mineral of the future. We know that we've got an enormous amount of copper already. It is exciting to think that there is more copper to be discovered, as demand for copper continues to increase at such a dramatic rate into the future and as we transition to clean energy and decarbonise our economy. Copper will be absolutely central to that.

We also know that other minerals that we have in abundance, like lithium and cobalt, are equally vitally significant. We know that there are huge industry opportunities in this country through the green transition. If we're producing green steel, that means the steelmaking will be co-locating itself with those iron ore deposits. You won't produce green steel by digging up iron ore and transporting it somewhere else. Why would you add that level of cost and/or challenge around the carbon footprint? You'll see a situation where, as technologically we discover the chemical industrial processes to allow for the production of things like green steel, that's going to happen right there where the iron ore deposits are. That's where the investment will be into steel manufacturing. That is an exciting prospect for this country as well. That's tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs, if steel production around the planet relocates from where the customers are to where the raw material, being the iron ore, is. The biggest deposits for iron ore production are, of course, in our Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The future for mining and resources in this country is very exciting. We've got to embrace and understand how significant the contribution of the mining sector has been to our economy and the development of our nation in the past. Its future is even brighter going forward. When you look at the regular monthly statistics published by the ABS around exports, we are a lion's-share mining and minerals-exporting nation. If we didn't have things like iron ore, coal, copper, gold, silver, nickel, lead, zinc et cetera, and if we weren't exporting them, we would have a spectacular trade deficit. We would not have the wealth as a nation that we have now. Thank you to the pioneers in the industry and those who are working in it currently, who are contributing so much to our economy. It's a bright future. I encourage all of us, as a parliament, to make sure that we're in unison in supporting this industry that's going to underpin our economy well into the future.

Debate adjourned.