Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan. Can the minister please update the Senate on the current state of the coal industry and the benefits it provides to the broader Australian community?

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his question. He is a great supporter of the great Queensland coal industry. The coal industry is in rude health. It is doing very well. It is exporting record amounts of wealth for our country. It remains the second highest export for our nation. It remains an industry that drives wealth, creates jobs and creates money for tax revenue for all our services that we provide in this place. It is exporting record amounts: around 400 million tonnes of coal is now exported from this country. It is up from 230 million tonnes 10 years ago.

This year prices have been much higher for coal as well, which is a great thing for our nation, given it is our second highest export. It is a great thing for our terms of trade and a great thing for our national income. Metallurgical coal prices have, amazingly, quadrupled over the past year, and thermal coal prices have more than doubled as well. Our coal industry remains strong, and that is a good thing for Australia and a particularly good thing for those regions that rely on the coal industry for many jobs.

Of course, coal still provides the vast majority of electricity in this country. As families and people put up their Christmas lights this year, more than half of that electricity on average around the country will be provided by coal. That will fire those lights. And when Santa comes along looking for houses to land at, Santa will be guided by electricity that is provided by the coal industry. The coal industry will help bring Christmas joy to many families around this country. Indeed, in eastern Australia more than 75 per cent of our electricity through the National Electricity Market will be provided by coal. Many people work in industries that rely on access to cheap, base load power and so need coal. Workers at Boyne Island smelters, near where I live in Gladstone, need that industry. Workers at Alcoa in Portland in Victoria need that industry. So many families will be able to have good Christmases with good paying jobs thanks to the coal industry in this nation.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. Senator O'Sullivan, your supplementary question.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There will clearly be no Christmas without coal. What are the risks to the health of the coal sector and benefits it provides to Australia?

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senator again for his question. There are risks. We have an alliance here in this chamber. We have a Labor-Greens alliance that wants to shut coal down in our nation. Just yesterday we saw it in a report. It was out there calling on the Australian government to shut down coal-fired power stations. In this report—signed up to by Senator Waters, Senator Chisholm and Senator Dastyari—it said that the question is not 'if coal-fired power stations will close', but how quickly and how orderly those closures will occur. They want to shut down our natural advantage in base load power. They have a leader who was crying crocodile tears with workers down at Hazelwood last week, and then they come back to this place and say their real plans are to shut those jobs down and to shut coal down.

I am proud of our coal industry. I am proud of how it has driven economic growth in places like China. But from Senator Dastyari there is not even a simple 'xie xie' to our industry. There is not even a simple 'thank you' from Senator Dastyari for all the jobs that coal provides and all the wealth it has provided around the world.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Sullivan.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister update the Senate on developments to facilitate major new investments in the coal sector?

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because the coal industry, as I said, is in rude health, there are still major investments that we can attract to this nation, notwithstanding, of course, the boom in investment is much reduced from what it was a few years ago. There is a very important project in regional Queensland at the moment that is on the table: the Adani Carmichael project. It could create thousands of jobs in regional Queensland, and it is very good news that we are attracting that investment in this country. It is even better news that over the past week it has got over more hurdles put up against it by environmental activist groups that are taking out court cases—not to try and protect the environment, but to try and disrupt and delay the latest projects. Last week two cases in the Queensland Supreme Court were dismissed against this project, which means now that there are many fewer court cases left to be decided. There are still some outstanding, but I am confident that this project can stack up, as long as we can get those groups who are opposed to coal and opposed to jobs in this country out of the way.