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

I thank the senator for his question. He is right to point out some the difficult economic circumstances that areas of regional Queensland are facing and have faced over the past couple of years. Many regional towns in Queensland have had unemployment rates higher than those rates, too, of above 10 per cent, given the downturn in the mining sector and, a couple of years ago, a very severe drought as well. But there is hope on the horizon for regional Queensland. We have had good rains for the agricultural sector, and, in the last few months, a number of coalmines have reopened or announced their reopening in Queensland, including at Collinsville and Baralaba, and expansions of coalmines at Peak Downs and Saraji that will create hundreds of jobs.

Just before Christmas, there was a fantastic early Christmas present for North Queensland, when Adani announced their plans to put even more jobs in regional Queensland. In particular, Adani announced that their project will have its headquarters in Townsville—in a regional city, not a capital city. They are creating hundreds of jobs, not just in the mining sector but also secretarial, administrative, accounting and legal jobs, in a major regional centre in our country. That is a massive positive for Australia to have that development going in there.

At the same time, they announced that Mackay and Bowen will be the regional headquarters for their rail and port operations—an important fillip for the town of Bowen; it has done it very tough—and that other towns will be service centres as well, including some smaller towns like Clermont, Moranbah, Collinsville, Charters Towers, Emerald and Rockhampton. This is the biggest news for North Queensland for decades, perhaps the biggest news, as I said, since the Beatles were here in the sixties, because it was back then that the Thiess brothers got together with Mitsui and built a mine in the Bowen Basin—