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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers to all the questions asked by coalition senators to the government today.

It's only in Labor's illogical, bizarre world that we could get a budget that's propped up by resources, but which also cuts support to them while giving extra ammunition to the sort of lawfare that we're going to see from the EDO. The resources minister is telling industry and media one thing, saying they're encouraging more gas supply to come to market; she knows that's what's going to reduce energy prices and provide better gas prices to the domestic market. But her cabinet colleagues are giving a nod and a wink to the Greens and to every other extreme green movement.

So, the Environmental Defenders Office have received an extra $9.6 million to conduct lawfare against the very industry that is the only solution we have in terms of providing affordable gas both to the domestic market, for manufacturing, and for our export market. This year alone, the gas industry is expected to provide $13 billion in royalties, company taxes and PAYG payments from the incredibly well-paid jobs in the gas industry. And it is extraordinary to me: when I go to towns like Gladstone, Rockhampton, Mount Isa and Townsville, the journalists ask me, 'What do you think this budget means for our people, our workers?' and I have to say, 'Well, it's not much good news, I'm afraid.'

In this budget we have seen massive cuts to incredibly important budget commitments that we had for the development of northern Australia, whether the billions of dollars for water funding, for Hells Gate Dam—

I'll take that interjection, Senator Canavan. I will have to provide a map similar to the one provided by Senator Watt before he was a minister. He would bring a map to RRAT on which he'd carefully coloured in northern Australia, I think just to remind him of where it is. Using that map, he would be able to see, from the water investments, the road investments, the half a billion dollars that's been cut from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, the cuts to the Northern Australia Development grants, and the cuts to roads and significant investments, that this is a Robin Hood budget in reverse. It steals jobs from the North—but I'm not sure where they're giving them to. It's the worst kind of theft, because nobody benefits and everybody loses, because it is the royalties and the company taxes—of gas, of coal, of critical minerals—that have allowed this country to be the First World country that we are.

We've continued to hear, about this budget, the sorts of Labor lies, the unravelling of budget commitments that I'm seeing now. People right across the Australian landscape are saying, 'Well, we don't believe this budget; we don't rate it, because you promised us the Rockhampton Ring Road.' The Prime-Minister-to-be put out a media release committing to it—something he's now deleted. They committed to a $275 electricity cost reduction, but now all we're seeing is electricity prices skyrocket. We know it is going to cost Australian households another $2,000 a year by this Christmas. That's the impact of this budget and this government that doesn't know how to manage money, doesn't know how to manage the budget.

This is the biggest spending budget—another $50 billion in receipts because of commodity prices. Yet what have they done with it? They've spent the lot. So, they have cut money from the places that make money and they're pouring it into the re-election campaign of the Premier of Victoria—a circular rail project that is going to assist a couple of people where they need to hold government. But the places that mine the resources, that grow the agricultural products, that secure the nation's future for generations to come—cut; dead; gone. That's what regional Australia means to Labor—absolutely nothing.