Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I am not sure which piece of data the senator is referring to. If he is talking about the BREE Resources and Energy Economics Quarterly report, which was released earlier, the note I have suggests that overall resources and energy export volumes are expected to grow by a robust 9.3 per cent in 2012-13. In particular, volumes are expected to grow strongly for iron ore, LNG, coal and thermal coal. Whilst export values are expected to climb, for the reasons Senator Smith referenced in his first question, he might be referring to a different data set but the data set to which I have referred shows robust growth in terms of export volumes. This accords with what the government has been saying. If you think about the mining boom, there are obviously different phases of it and, whilst prices may come off their previous record highs, you would anticipate the investment that we have seen would lift export volumes for a significant period of time. (Time expired)