George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Di Natale, I am not aware of what passed between Minister Ciobo or Australian ministers and Mr Adani, but what I can tell you, since you raised the subject of the Adani mine, is that the Australian government—and, for that matter, the LNP opposition in Queensland—is very committed to the development of the Adani mine because the Adani mine, on various estimates, is worth more than 10,000 full-time jobs to people in Central and Northern Queensland. If you want to find a point of difference between the two parties in the Queensland election on 25 November, you can't find a clearer point of difference than in their attitude to jobs. And you can't find anything more emblematic of those different attitudes to jobs than the fact that the LNP, led by Tim Nicholls, supports the Adani mine and the ALP, led by Ms Annastacia Palaszczuk, does not. In fact, Senator Di Natale, you may have noticed that there was a U-turn, a 180-degree turn, by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in the first week of the Queensland election campaign, when she turned around from her declared support of the Adani mine to saying that she would block the possibility of NAIF funding for the Adani mine.

So I'm glad you asked me about it, Senator Di Natale. I can tell you that, if there were to be an LNP government elected in Queensland, we will give every encouragement to the Adani mine because it is the right thing to open up the Galilee Basin, it's the right thing to build those rail lines and it's the right thing to bring 10,000 new jobs to Central and North Queensland—and only the LNP will do it.