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

I thank Senator Stoker for her question. She's absolutely right: we are blessed, as a country, to have abundant resources that can be converted into cheap energy for the Australian people. The clear lesson around the world is that the countries that do develop their energy resources, if they're lucky enough to have them, have cheap energy. We traditionally have had that advantage. On our side of politics, we believe in the development of our energy resources to make Australia a strong economy, to create jobs, to support our manufacturing industry and to help households keep power bills down too. We support a strong resources sector in this country, particularly the individuals across our country who mine our coal, extract our gas, help underpin our economic development and help underpin thousands of jobs—not just in the resources sector but also in the manufacturing sector; all of the sectors. That's what we believe and that's what we are passionate about doing and developing. Right now, across Australia, our coal resources account for 60 per cent of the electricity produced in Australia, and our gas resources contribute 20 per cent on average to our energy resources. So 80 per cent of our electricity comes from fossil fuels that are developed here in this country.

Unfortunately, the other side declared a war on cheap energy. They have declared war on these cheap energy resources because they don't want to see the coal extracted. We have their energy minister out there saying there's a 'coal delusion' across the economy. We have the opposition leader, Mr Shorten, saying that people who support the coal sector are 'knuckle-draggers'. I don't know if he said that in Central Queensland, but he says people who support coal are knuckle-draggers. Finally, we have some ray of hope here that some in the Labor Party have some common sense, because the member for Paterson, Meryl Swanson, has come back from Japan and said that the private sector should consider the construction of coal-fired power stations here in Australia. She has seen what's happening overseas with our coal in Japan; it can produce cheap power. That's why we back the development of this sector, we back Australian jobs and we back Australian families having cheaper power prices.