Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The people of Queensland and the people right across Australia can have confidence that the $98 million we are investing in regional assessments on the impact of CSG mining is real funding making a real difference to the body of scientific knowledge that is there and that the processes work effectively. But, what is more, the people of regional Queensland can have confidence that they are getting hundreds of additional jobs as a result of the investment from CSG in those regions. Senator Lazarus would be well advised and perhaps he would like to travel with the member for Maranoa or one of the Queensland LNP senators through some of the regions, where he will find that it has turned around the prospects in a number of towns and that there are new job opportunities, new investment—valuable investment that is creating new opportunities for young people in those regions—and different opportunities, as well as the generation of valuable gas resources for domestic use and for the export market, generating wealth for this country, which you seem to be standing against, Senator Lazarus.