Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Today thousands of farmers from around Australia have travelled to Canberra, rallying against Labor's decision to ban live sheep exports and other antifarming policies. After two years of bad regulation, ideological rhetoric and job-killing policies, it has been reported that the mining industry, representing 10 per cent of GDP, took the Prime Minister's Minerals Week speech as a declaration of war. Can the Prime Minister explain why he is fixated on policies that hurt Western Australia, risk jobs and make life harder for families and businesses in my state?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's a very broad question from the member for O'Connor, whose electorate I was in just last week—there in Collie, the place where there is going to be a nuclear reactor sometime in the 2040s or 2050s if those opposite are to be believed. We are yet to have any costings. We're yet to have a process, but that is what they say. Of course, Collie used to be, for a long time, a place where coalmining and the coal-fired power station were major generators of jobs and economic activity. But that is a region that is in transition. What is happening is that government is working with the private sector, including the resources sector, on that transition. There you can see, on the site right next to the power station, 500 people at work building a big battery that will store enough energy for 860,000 homes.

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

The Prime Minister will pause. Member for O'Connor, it's going to be very tough for you to take a point of order on relevance, so I'm giving you some—

No, let me finish. You'll get the call if you choose to take it, but, if you ask a broad question with all the topics in that question and the Prime Minister is talking about energy, mining and directly about Western Australia, which you asked about, it'll have to be a different point of order than relevance. You'll get the call. Member for O'Connor.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a point of order on relevance. The question was about live sheep exports and the mining industry, not about energy.

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! I'll ensure the Prime Minister remains directly relevant, which he is doing at the moment. The Prime Minister has the call.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is an area that is in transition, successfully, just as some farming practices will change, successfully. I have faith in our farmers, and I have faith in our resources sector. When it comes to farmers, what we have done is, firstly, restore trade relationships on cotton, timber, oaten hay, barley and wine. It's pretty close between the resources sector and the farming sector—$20 billion of additional trade in exports that were gone prior to us being in government. We've delivered $1.1 billion for a connectivity plan for regional and rural Australia. Australia's red meat exporters are hitting record highs, with emerging markets accounting for unprecedented demand for locally processed beef and lamb.

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

What he's saying is you're all wrong.

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

The member for Barker is now warned.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And might I say that this includes the live cattle industry, which has been very successful and which those opposite wanted to shut down. Those opposite called for the border to Indonesia to be shut down. That is what they called for. We've rescued biosecurity by pumping in $1 billion to protect industry from pests and disease while improving traceability. We are working to support our agriculture sector and our resources sector.