Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am just reading from it. It is the front page of the Townsville Bulletinthe newspaper that serves North Queensland and northern Australia. It is totally supportive of this project, as is everybody in Townsville, North Queensland and northern Australia, because it will bring wealth to the north and it will create jobs for the 11 per cent unemployed in Townsville that, clearly, Senator Waters has absolutely no interest in at all. It will help the small businesses in North Queensland who are struggling to keep their doors open with the mining downturn. Those small businesses are mums and dads who have put their life savings into small business to see them going out the door. This project will help those people.

Adani contribute three per cent of their global profits every year to community projects. This is the company that Senator Waters is berating—three per cent of its global profits go to community projects around the world. Adani is also paying for school for 10,000 underprivileged kids in India. They have paid for infrastructure for 128 schools. Senator Waters claims to be looking after the poor people around the world and those less advantaged than ourselves. Here is a company that is doing it. What can Senator Waters do in this coward's castle of protection? Senator Waters is misleading, and deliberately maligning a company that has done so much around the world for others and the underprivileged.

When I put my name down to speak on this, I had a lot of things that I wanted to raise. But, after hearing that speech from—I am embarrassed to say—a senator from my own state of Queensland, I am afraid I will again have to spend most of my time pointing out, point by point, the deliberate misinformation that was contained in that speech. It was one of the most misleading and deliberately false speeches I have ever heard in my long period in this chamber.

First of all, Senator Waters keeps talking about giving out taxpayers' money. She knows that is wrong. She knows that if Adani apply to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, and if the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility do provide funding after due diligence which will, in their normal way, be lengthy and detailed, it will be a loan. It will be a loan that will have to be repaid. The continual reference to giving away taxpayers' money is simply part of the Greens political party's ongoing campaign to do and say anything as long as they can get to a result that they think is right at the end.

The senator continues in this speech, and every speech, to tell the world that the Barrier Reef is dying. Everybody who lives up there knows that is false. I ask you to go and ask any one of the ambassadors to Australia from around the world that the foreign minister took to Cairns a couple of weeks ago—they have been out onto the Barrier Reef, they have seen it and they are amazed at its beauty, resilience and ongoing growth off the Queensland coast. The reef has, over the years, had ups and downs. It is very well managed by the Commonwealth and Queensland governments. Its flourishing coral is growing in certain areas. Ask anyone up on the reef, any of the ambassadors or any tourist that goes there—the reef is magnificent and will stay there. I do not know who Senator Waters is being paid by, but, clearly, she is trying to say to tourists from Germany and North America, 'Don't come to Australia and spend your money. Go and spend your money somewhere else in the world.' That is the message that she is giving and deliberately giving.