Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

As we sell more to the world, as our exports grow, that means our businesses earn more revenue. When they earn more revenue, they can employ more people. When they are employing more people, those businesses and those individuals are paying more tax and contributing more right across the board to our economy. That's the good news in the virtuous cycle that comes from having such strong export growth across the Australian economy.

Investment is equally a critical part of this contribution. Take the Ichthys LNG project in Darwin which Senator Canavan and I were pleased to be at the opening of just a couple of weeks ago. That project is going to see a 40-year life span and tens of billions of dollars of taxes paid during the life span of that project as well as tens of billions of dollars of export income earned for Australia. That is the type of virtuous cycle that you see from that type of investment driving those types of exports and supporting us to deliver the types of services Australians deserve. (Time expired)