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

Our growth in resource exports has largely been on the back of economic growth in our region—and long may that continue. We have successfully attracted investment from Japan, Korea and China. We should take pride in what we as a country provide to those countries in helping those nations develop their economies and take hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Hopefully we will continue to be able to do that. Hopefully economic growth does continue in our region, but we can't control that completely.

We know that India, for example, is the fastest-growing major country in the world at the moment. It has enormous prospects to continue to grow and develop, but there remain nearly 170 million people in India without access to electricity. I hope that our great coalmining sector can play a role in helping bring electricity, for the first time, to people in our region. One of the biggest things you can do to help people's health outcomes and educational outcomes is let them have access to electricity. India also has an enormous need to build apartments and housing. Our coking coal will be needed for that. I visited India in the last couple of weeks to stress those opportunities, to attract those investments and to create jobs here in Australia.