Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I can understand why my colleagues opposite might be a bit sensitive about these issues in Queensland. But the point I was making was that the Queensland government, I would hope, would be able to give us a clear lead on what it intends to do with the huge uranium resources in our state of Queensland. I was surmising that perhaps they cannot because they are distracted with these other things that are happening in my state of Queensland, which are somewhat beyond belief.

As I indicated earlier, I support this bill, and the coalition will be supporting it. As I conclude, I make a further observation in relation to the bill: where mining occurs on Aboriginal land, the Commonwealth is obligated under the Aboriginal land rights act to make payments to the Aboriginal Benefits Account from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of amounts equivalent to royalties. This payment would be in addition to payments to the Northern Territory of amounts equivalent to the royalties collected by the Commonwealth from uranium in the Territory. I raise that simply to say that that is a system that does—I think appropriately—work, in relation to mining. But it does raise the wider issue of royalties and where they end up. In both Commonwealth and state areas around Australia a lot of the nation’s wealth comes from mining—and therefore from royalties, company tax and income tax—generated in the north of Australia. It often seems unfair to me that the considerable amount of wealth that is raised in the north of our country, particularly in remote and regional parts of Northern Australia, is not returned to those people in the form of infrastructure in Northern Australia. We who live in Northern Australia, and particularly in Queensland and the Northern Territory are aware that governments never seem to recognise where the wealth of their states comes from. A lot of the wealth of Queensland originates in the north-west mineral province but the wealth ends up in the south-east corner of our state.

I think it is time that we as a nation had a closer look at this. I am delighted that Mr Barnett, the Premier of Western Australia, is addressing this issue in Western Australia by ensuring that some of the wealth from the north-west of Western Australia is actually returned into regional Australia, providing an equitable and fair distribution of moneys. I would certainly think that the Queensland government could well take a leaf out of Mr Barnett’s book in providing back to North Queensland and Northern Australia some of the very considerable wealth that flows to the state capital and, indeed, the national capital from the wealth created in those areas.

I am pleased to have been able to contribute to this debate. I am pleased that the Labor Party will have, by the passage of this legislation, completed the work commenced by my colleague the Hon. Ian Macfarlane some years ago when he was the resources minister. I am pleased that we are rationalising the payment of royalties in the Northern Territory. It appears that Mr Albanese will not be able to help me, but perhaps someone who is yet to speak from the government side could explain to me in pretty simple terms just what the Australian Labor Party’s policy is in relation to uranium, both across Australia and in my own state of Queensland. I know that I and many workers and other people in the north who understand the benefits of uranium mining would be very pleased to get a significant and definitive statement from the Labor Party on what the future of the uranium industry in Australia is.