Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, before making a contribution to this discussion, let me offer my best wishes to you on having been elected Deputy President of the Senate. It is no mean feat to retain the support of your party room both as President and as Deputy President, so I give my best wishes to you for the duration of your term.

Having opened with those pleasantries, let us now turn to Senator Johnston’s motion. I think the first question to ask is this: who are the owners of the North West Shelf project? From memory, the three principal companies that have been involved in the development and exploitation of that project for many years are Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and Japan LPG. There are one or two other foreign companies, but they have been the mainstays of the operation for the best part of 25 years. If one looked at their balance sheets from any time in the last 20 years, you would see that each of those companies is well capitalised, is well diversified and has continuously given exceptionally high returns to shareholders over many years. Indeed, when you break it up further and go into the bowels of their annual reports, you will see that the returns from the North West Shelf project for many years have been a significant contributor to the welfare of those companies.

One only has to look at how well major companies—in the resources, infrastructure and finance sectors—in this country are doing. Over the last two or three weeks we have had annual reports from BHP Billiton, Rio, Woodside, Woolworths, CBA and ANZ, to name a few. Without exception each of those companies has been in a high investment phase, a high return phase and a high growth phase. Business is doing well in this country and will continue to do well under the Rudd Labor government. Resource companies in particular—whether they be BHP, Rio, Woodside or any of the whole range of juniors in Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory—are doing well under the regime that allows exploitation and development of natural resources. In that context it is fair to note that yesterday’s profit result from Woodside—from memory—was up by over 80 per cent on the previous year. The figure of more than $1 billion is extraordinarily welcome, and I am sure it will be very welcome to their shareholders when they pass on the dividend in the next month or so. Clearly, from those introductory remarks, Australia is a wonderful place for business to invest. It is a wonderful place to invest. It has been for many of the past years and continues to be, particularly in the resources sector in the key states of Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and, increasingly, the Northern Territory.

Let us now turn to the issues raised by previous speakers. One must observe that the issue of condensate and of whether or not Woodside want to pay the extra figures to the government is being highlighted for one reason and one reason only—that is, up until Saturday week we are in the process of a four-yearly election campaign in Western Australia. For some unknown reason the opposition seem to be of the view that they can make some headway on this issue when they did nothing in the 10 to 12 years they were in government. Senator Johnston referred to sovereign risk. Apparently sovereign risk is attacked when a government imposes a new or a different tax regime on a particular industry or company. I happen to recall that last October and November both major parties went to the people promising fundamental change in the areas of emissions trading regimes and carbon taxes, and both major parties gave an undertaking that there would be consequent financial and structural changes introduced which would have an immediate impact on companies. (Time expired)