Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his question. We have grown rich as a nation on our abundant cheap energy sources in our country, including our coal, our gas and our hydro resources down here in southern Australia. We are very lucky as a nation to have been given these resources and to be able to use them to underpin many industries that provide good, high-paying jobs for average Australians. This is because a cheap energy in this country means we can have dear wages in those industries.

Since we have cheap energy, we can have industries like an aluminium sector, which provides thousands of jobs for Australians who just want to have a good job to provide for their families—people like Tim Price, who lives down the road from me and works at the Boyne Island smelter in Gladstone. His job relies on coal. There is no other way around it. If it were not for the Gladstone Power Station just down the road from the Boyne Island smelter, there would not be a Boyne Island smelter in Gladstone. That smelter employs around 1,000 Queenslanders. It needs a cheap energy source to be able to survive, and it is only because we have that high-quality cheap resource close to Gladstone and the Bowen Basin that we can have those jobs.

This government wants to protect those jobs. We want to keep those jobs here. We want to keep those high wages for Tim and others at the Boyne Island smelter. May I say, traditionally and before, the Labor Party used to support those jobs too. They were their people; they were their jobs. But, right now, they are deserting those people at the Boyne Island smelter because they are turning their back on coal. If you do not support a coal industry—if you do not support coal-fired power—we will not make aluminium in this country and we will not have jobs for people like Tim at the Boyne Island smelter. On this side of the place, we support those jobs. We support people like Tim. He is a hard worker. We should back him, and we should back our coal industry.

The PRESIDENT: Senator O'Sullivan, a supplementary question?