Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I heard a great saying when attending the Queensland Mining & Engineering Expo in Mackay earlier this month: if it's not made of steel, it's made in a factory made of steel. Not one federal Labor or Greens politician attended the expo, a fact that was noted with concern and surprise by the sector's heavyweights gathered there, given not only the economic but also the environmental contribution of this industry. Any public display of support by Labor for mining companies would jeopardise their attempts to gain Greens support for our second most important sector, and they have shown their hand.

Labor's reliance on the Greens continues to threaten Australia's coal and gas industries, which are key pillars of our economy that continue to provide affordable and secure electricity, to provide jobs and to provide funds for vital services. It is only prosperous economies that can afford to be good environmental managers. This is why we must protect the economy.

The Australian resources industry is creating jobs, business opportunities and investment, especially in regional Australia. In 2020-21 the resources and energy sector accounted for around 10 per cent of Australia's GDP. The sector's exports made up around two-thirds of Australia's total export earnings. The Greens continue to make up numbers about the sector while ignoring the fact that it is ensuring our energy security. The lesson of the past few months is that energy security equals national security for all Australians.

If you live in a mining sector and you voted for Labor or have a Labor representative, this is what you're getting: dirty deals with people who want to cut the artery to Australia's economic heart and to regional Australia. Our food, our homes, our cars—yes, even the electric ones—devices and clothes all exist thanks to mining or machines made by mining. Even the rapidly-growing rare earths mining sector, a key plank in battery production for renewable energy, needs heavy steel machinery to function. And the most efficient way to make steel is using coal and blast furnaces.

The Greens and their supporters reveal a lack of understanding when they make outlandish claims about coalmining. Coal is an ingredient in silicon solar panels. Wind turbines are made predominantly of steel and concrete, which are made using coal. And on most days coal-fired power makes up 54 per cent of our national energy generation, and gas makes up 20 per cent of our generation. We simply cannot afford to cut new coal and gas developments.

The Greens like to think they're smarter than everyone else. So what's the plan to replace that 70 per cent of baseload power generation? More renewables? We just don't yet have the battery technology to ensure that the lights stay on when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. South Australia is held up as the gold standard for renewables, but multiple times at the start of June that state was drawing more than 80 per cent of its power from gas and diesel as windless days arrived. The South Australians are also installing a battery on Torrens Island the size of Adelaide Oval at a cost of $180 million that will have one entire hour of storage.

Most people support the idea of renewable energy, but we must ensure that the transition is timed to coincide with replacement baseload energy generation coming online. Not only that; we need to build new transmission lines, conservatively costed at $14 billion, from the new sources of power to the grid. AEMO is mapping transmission lines but how many reach the regions where the renewable energy places are situated? It's why copper string is a critical transmission line to connect the minerals province of the north-west in Queensland through to Townsville to not only access the renewable energy projects but also take energy to those mining projects.

The transition needs to be gradual, but the Greens demand that we switch off coal virtually overnight. Meanwhile, other countries are restarting coal-fired power stations or building new ones. Not only does that negate any of the meagre emission savings we make here; those countries need coal, and it should be high-quality Australian coal. By 2025 Germany will have spent more than half a trillion euros on renewables and is still only drawing 34 per cent of its energy needs from renewables. Less than a month ago, due to disruption to Russian gas supplies, the German parliament was forced to pass emergency legislation to restart previously mothballed coal-fired power plants just to keep the lights on. The media reports authorities will also bulldoze a historic church to get at coal reserves underneath—and, just remember, it's still summer there, so what can they expect in the bitterly cold European winter? That's right; it will be coal to the rescue. The German experience proves that energy security equals national security for all Australians. While other countries recognise this, the Greens missed the memo.

In 2021 alone the world added 1.45 million megawatts of new coal-fired power; I got that from the Global Coal Plant Tracker. Eighty per cent of that is in China and India—two countries not bound by international emissions reductions agreements. And we can see in Victoria the emerging issue of energy supply, security and affordability. Coal-fired power makes up 54 per cent of our national energy generation, and gas makes up 20 per cent of our generation. We simply cannot afford to cut new coal and gas developments. Coal prices are at a historic high, and this is due only to one thing: demand, demand that is tipped to grow to record levels this coming financial year. The world needs coal and gas, and customers will get it from elsewhere if they don't get it from Australia.

Australia's resources industry pumped $39 billion in royalties and taxes into Australian and state government coffers in 2020-21 and contributed a record $301 billion to the economy. The mining sector directly employs more than 270,000 people, and the number of workers employed in the sector has doubled over the last 15 years. We simply do not have a replacement for that income stream and employment sector. Employment in the sector grew by 11 per cent in the year to February 2022, creating over 25,000 new jobs. The resources sector provides jobs and opportunities in many rural and regional areas that have been doing it tough. The renewable projects will not bring the same number of well-paid jobs.

In my short time as shadow minister, I've met with dozens of mining executives and seen the extraordinary measures being implemented to protect the environment. In fact, more environmental scientists are employed by mining companies than anywhere else. The Queensland Resources Council states that about a quarter of Queensland mines use renewable energies, two-thirds of the state's resources companies plan to invest in lowering their emissions in the next 12 months, and 40 per cent of them are already actively investing in low-emissions technology. The International Energy Agency World energy outlook projects that total coal, oil and gas demand will grow. The IEA confirms that coal and gas will remain an important part of the world's energy mix for decades into the future, with coal remaining the single largest source of electricity in 2040, which means that gas and coal will continue to play a vital role in Australia's energy mix for the foreseeable future.

The Greens base their demands on a desire to prevent tree-clearing and reduce emissions. This is the same party that demands governments build one million new homes but at the same time opposes any new residential development that requires even minor tree-clearing. They don't seem to protest about the trees cleared for wind and solar projects, showing a selective outrage that destroys credibility. The mining industry would employ more environmental scientists, invest more into environmental surveys and research and operate under some of the world's strictest environmental laws. We should be encouraging these experienced, mature players to ramp up operations, employ more people, on double the average wage, and provide the royalties and taxes that pay for infrastructure.

If we followed the Greens' lead, we would sacrifice the thousands of mum-and-dad businesses that mining supports and scores of regional towns. Gas is still in huge demand in Australia and around the world, not just for energy production but also for production of urea, a critical part of agricultural fertilisers, and AdBlue, a component for the agriculture and transport industries. Australia can have a plan to utilise more renewables, but good planning takes time. This fanciful notion from the Greens should not be supported. It is the Green tail wagging the Labor dog.