Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The rapid expansion of Middle Arm will set off a carbon bomb that will destroy Australia's chance of hitting net zero. I am desperately concerned that, in the process of setting off this carbon bomb in the Beetaloo, the people of the Northern Territory are going to be the ones left holding the bag.

My own community of Gladstone in Central Queensland bears the scars of fossil-fuel boom-and-bust cycles. When fossil-fuel markets crash, which they always do, these corporations don't stick around to make sure that the community is supported. They suck up resources, they pay off their party-affiliated lobbyists and they vanish.

Northern Australia needs genuine, sustainable, long-term investment in its future. With Labor wanting to top up the NAIF with an additional $2 billion, they must also rule out using it to funnel money towards projects like Middle Arm. The Northern Australia infrastructure fund is an Abbot-era relic, through which the Morrison government tried to fund the Adani coalmine and which could yet be used to provide funding for Tamboran's gas export hub in Darwin and fracking the Beetaloo Basin. The ball is in Labor's court to rule out public spending on gas and coal, including from the NAIF.