Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was delighted to be a guest at the National Mining Day event hosted by Santos and sponsored by many leading mining companies at Moomba in South Australia last week. This event celebrates the mining sector and its enormous contribution to Australia and its high standard of living. Executive chair of Hancock Prospecting, Gina Rinehart, laid bare the essential and irreplaceable contributions of mining to Australia. Mrs Rinehart said that industry paid more than $43 billion in tax and delivered more than $31 billion in royalties, enough to cover our entire defence budget plus all federal spending on roads and schools.

Mining has helped deliver to Australia some of the highest living standards in the world, but Mrs Rinehart also said that this could no longer be taken for granted. And she's right. We've been in a per capita recession for six quarters now. We need the mining sector to flourish if we are going to reverse this decline in our living standards, but this government, supported by the Greens, Teals and Senator Pocock, is doing everything it can to stifle mining with red, green and black tape.

Labor has stopped a billion-dollar gold mine over a mythical insect and is holding up a $29-billion gas project over a poisonous snake. Labor is killing the golden goose. Mrs Rinehart reminded this government that it does not create wealth; it only consumes the wealth of the private sector. It must get out of the way of the industries which create wealth. If we want to see higher investment, better living standards, higher wages, more jobs and more onshore innovation, cut the government's undue burdens on mining and other wealth-creating industries and introduce to the parliament government efficiency. I'll call on all those opposed to show me the clear evidence that human induced carbon dioxide affects climate change. Until then, you are destroying our country and standard of living.