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

But what do we hear from the Greens and the teals? And, be clear, they're in partnership on this. We hear hysterical language: 'global boiling'. We've moved from global warming to global boiling. Next we'll be just pure evaporation. Despite the Greens and teals presenting themselves as fair and reasonable, it is hypocritical—their scare campaigns and their lack of understanding of the sheer economics and environmental outcomes that this country is trying to manage. They don't have real solutions to the cost-of-living issues facing Australians and, despite skyrocketing energy bills, instead want to turn off affordable, reliable traditional energy in order to make a few feel better about themselves. Instead of engaging constructively, they have come here today to try and damage Australia's prosperity, to damage the Northern Territory's economic future and to shut down this critical infrastructure project.

Middle Arm will deliver thousands of permanent high-skilled jobs in new and emerging industries. It is set to bring billions of dollars to the Northern Territory and federal economies and continue generating wealth for our country, yet the teals and the Greens want to throw all of this away. I say to Territorians: be very afraid, because this is proof that the Greens and the teals are coming after your jobs. They don't support these foundational industries. They grandstand for the sake of grandstanding. And I say to anyone who works in the resources sector across Australia—that's all 1.1 million of you, the 1.1 million Australians who are directly employed by resources industries—that the Greens and the teals are coming for you too, because when there are energy and electricity shortages and the new mines that are on track cannot meet their safeguard targets and we cannot develop processing for critical minerals like lithium and rare earths, where do you think the investment will go? It won't go here. It will not go to Australia. We are already seeing investment decisions being made that preference Alaska and Canada over Australia. Qatar is eating our lunch and filling our export markets.

It is critical that we continue to press back against the fearmongering and scare campaigns that come from these groups, because they will damage Australia. They will ensure that our children don't have any future at all, because we will hand over our responsibilities for being high-standard managers of resources projects—something that we are incredibly good at in this country. We will offshore those responsibilities to countries with higher emissions and with less high standards for work force, for the environment and for tax payments. We will offshore those responsibilities to someone who does a worse job, and Australians will be left the poorer for it.

We stand at a turning point and we have a very clear choice: do we continue to allow these hysterical claims that will damage Australia economically and environmentally to continue coming from the Greens and the teals, or do we say enough of your hysterics? Step back, because we know that it is from these projects that Australians receive the taxes to pay for our health system, our education system, the NDIS, schools, roads and hospitals. That is our choice, and the coalition says: 'We will not allow this to go on.' We say enough. We will protect Australians. We will protect Australians' jobs and we will protect Australian standards of living.