Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a bag of wind—really, what a bag of wind! That's what this is all about: it's about cheap politics. It's got nothing to do with the energy market, nothing to do with delivering cheap power for Australians. If that were what it was about, you would be on a very different path. What it's really about is a cruel hoax on the people of North Queensland. It's a hoax on the people whom you claim you want to represent. If you really wanted to demonstrate a commitment to the industries that are there and should be there—the resources industry, export coal, manufacturing—you would be on a very different path. You would be on a very different path if you wanted a plan for investment in new jobs, if you had a plan for cheaper energy, if you wanted to deliver for the steel and aluminium sectors. It's certainly not been evident in anything else that the Liberal National Party has done in Queensland. That's why Robbie Katter belled the cat the other day. He could see this plan for the fraud that it is. He could see straight through it.

When you look at who is there in Shine Energy, the personnel who are driving this corporate shell of a company, what you see is former Katter Australian Party people and former LNP people, not a single engineer or energy market expert. What you see is these guys perpetrating a fraud on people in North Queensland, who actually need an outfit that is prepared to stand up for North Queensland jobs.

Senator Canavan has never seen a good, permanent coalminer's job that he hasn't wanted to turn into a casual, low-paid job.

Government senators interjecting—

That's what you're about. Your job here is spruiking for people who want to strip communities, strip jobs, drive wages down and drive jobs offshore. A close examination of Shine's publicly available material—because none of their governance material is available publicly in the material they provide on their website—just shows that it's a company that is not capable of delivering this project. There is no support for this project among the Brisbane Liberals; they are very clear on that. The Queensland LNP says, very clearly, 'We do not support this project, so what on earth are you doing here?' The energy spokesman for the Queensland LNP says, very clearly, 'We are not for this project.' But you're all down here, posturing and posing, a bunch of carpetbaggers who are here pretending to be something that you are not. These former Productivity Commission economists—no friends of the workers, jumping on in the high-vis, doing the press conferences, doing the podcasts—have no record of delivery. The closest things that this outfit opposite here have, in terms of northern Australian infrastructure, is their fraud of a northern Australian infrastructure fund, which delivered a big fat zero for northern Australia.

When people look at this debate and they watch the way that this debate is being conducted, they ought to think clearly and carefully about whose interests Senator Rennick and Senator Canavan are really representing in this debate.