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

I thank Senator McDonald for her question, and recognise her strong passion to support jobs in regional Queensland, particularly in North Queensland. A lot of those 50,000 jobs are up there in the north. I know that she, myself and the whole Liberal-National government are there to support jobs in our resources sector and to support jobs in our coal industry. We want to see that thrive and grow.

Unfortunately, there are those who continually try to talk down our nation's biggest export. This week, the Australian National University hosted a forum, and the title of the forum was 'The coal transition forum'. It was here in Canberra, to discuss jobs in North Queensland. At that forum, the shadow minister for climate change, Mr Pat Conroy, gave a speech in which he said that global demand for thermal coal is in structural decline. He said that there's a proactive role for government in achieving a just transition for the coal industry, and he said that Labor will continue to work on alternative policies for a just transition.

Now, when we hear the words 'just transition' up there in North Queensland they sound a little bit confusing. What exactly is a just transition? The Labor Party, thankfully, did actually outline this before the last federal election. In their policy—in their own documents—the Labor Party promised to:

… establish an independent Just Transition Authority to help plan for and coordinate the response to the eventual closure of coal-fired power stations …

And associated mines. They said that the authority will, as a minimum, have the power to implement pooled redundancy schemes for workers in coal-fired power stations and mines. So the Labor Party, the so-called workers party, have established a bureaucracy here in Canberra to put people out of a job! That was going to be the job of the just transition authority under a Labor government here in Canberra. The people in North and Central Queensland aren't fools. They know they're not fighting for their jobs—they're going to put them out of a job. With the Labor Party, we need to understand where they are post election, because Mr Fitzgibbon, the shadow minister for resources, is out there saying that global coal demand will go up. Pat Conroy is saying it will go down. Which one is it?