Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Resources. How will the Albanese Labor government's investment into the resources sector deliver a future made in Australia? Are there any barriers to that agenda?

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Hasluck for her question. The natural resources of this great continent are literally the bedrock and the starting point for a future made in Australia. The Prime Minister recently announced in Western Australia the groundbreaking Resourcing Australia's Prosperity program. Our government is investing $3.4 billion over 35 years for Geoscience Australia to find new deposits of minerals and sources of energy to build a future made in Australia. This is the largest investment of any Australian government in precompetitive geoscience, the science and exploration for the resources we need to get to net zero. All of the minerals and the rare earths we need for essential supply chains and green technology needed for net zero are found here in Australia. We just need to know where to find them, as Australia is 80 per cent underexplored. This is a generational investment in the science underpinning the resources sector and is an absolute game changer.

Along with a 10 per cent critical minerals production tax incentive, this is the most significant budget for the resources sector in this country ever. And we must remember: if companies don't make a value-added product, they don't receive a tax credit. It is an incentive based on success. We've also committed over $10 million of planning for critical minerals common user facilities in partnerships with the states and territories, who have welcomed these initiatives—as, I might add, have the Liberal and Nationals leaders in Western Australia.

So what is standing in the way? What are the barriers to these policies, I am asked. To be frank, they are the shadow Treasurer, the Leader of the Opposition and probably the whole of the LNP of Queensland. I wonder if they have taken the time to ask the Queensland Resources Council what they think of these policies.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The member for Barker will cease interjecting.

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If they had, they would know that Janette Hewson, the CEO of the QRC, has said:

The Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive, funding to progress common user facilities and $566 million to Geoscience Australia to develop new data are all important announcements that will benefit our critical minerals industry.

Those opposite pretend to be a friend of the west, but nothing could be further from the truth. Maybe they would have consulted the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia. As CEO Rebecca Tomkinson has said, 'It is pleasing to see the federal government adopt CME recommendations such as the production tax incentive for critical minerals and funding for common-user infrastructure.' Now, the QRC and the CME of WA are hardly the stalwarts of support for the Australian Labor Party, but they know a good policy when they see it.

What we know is that the opposition choose to act not in the national interest but in their own self-interest. They want to offshore Australia's future; we will make a future here in Australia.