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

I thank Senator Macdonald for his question. As he rightly outlined, it is a very important question about the future of not just North Queensland but also our nation. Adani made a very important announcement today in Rockhampton that they are proceeding with this project with a changed design for their rail line. Their original design was a 388-kilometre rail line, which was sabotaged for political reasons by the Queensland Labor Party to try to win an election, sabotaged to try to trade off jobs in Northern and Central Queensland for votes in Brisbane. That's what they were trying to do. But isn't it great news that, despite the best efforts of the Labor Party, these jobs may still be delivered for North and Central Queensland and for Australia? This announcement shows there is a commitment to open up the Galilee Basin, a commitment that would unlock not just this particular mine but other mines as well that could deliver up to 15,000 direct mining jobs across the region that are extremely important for our country.

The problem is that we still have questions about the position of the Australian Labor Party on this project. Earlier this year Mr Shorten was asked for his thoughts on Adani, and Mr Shorten said, 'I make no secret that I don't like it very much.' That was Mr Shorten's view. He doesn't like the creation of jobs. There is still, however, a problem, because we still have a bit of a secret about the position of people on the other side. There's Senator Watt, who is a regular fly-in fly-out visitor to Rockhampton. We don't know what his view is on this issue. Does he not like it very much when thousands of new members are created for the CFMMEU? He might not like it very much, but we don't really know. What's Senator Ketter's position on this? Does he like it very much when thousands of North Queenslanders get opportunities to have a job and have a go in life? Does he like that very much? I'm not going to miss you, Senator Chisholm. What's Senator Chisholm's view on this project? We still don't know if they are going to have a senator in Central Queensland; we don't know their view of this imaginary Central Queensland senator.