George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a hide the opposition have to come in here and talk about jobs, when all week all we have heard is Beltway stuff. We just heard a lot about Canberra then. That is all we have been hearing from the Labor Party for the last week. It is just Canberra, Canberra, Canberra! It is just insider politics from them, while the government is talking about job creation.

We are talking about something, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I know is close to your heart and close to my heart. We have been talking about trying to get the Carmichael mine back on track. This is a mine that, with the associated rail line, the Abbot Point expansion and the associated indirect jobs that would be created from the project, stands to contribute about 10,000 extra jobs in the North. Ten thousand extra jobs is no small target. But the Labor Party guys opposite have announced today that they are going to oppose measures that we want to take to try and streamline this project and to stop the Greens from waging warfare in the courts against this job-creating development and other job-creating developments. These guys are opposing these measures. They are sacrificing the workers of North Queensland for the cheap and nasty Green vote. That is disgraceful for the Labor Party—but it is true to form.

The Labor Party's national president, Mr Butler, went on the record to say that he does not believe there is a place for coal in Australia. This was the guy who thought that coal should go. When the Leader of the Opposition was asked to respond to one of his frontbenchers, Mr Shorten said:

Are you asking me something should always be the case forever?

in terms of whether coal will continue to be mined in Australia. He said:

I'm not in the position to use a crystal ball …

You do not need to use a crystal ball. You just need to have look at the International Energy Agency report from May, which notes:

Growth in coal-fired generation since 2010 has been greater than that of all non-fossil sources combined, continuing a 20-year trend …

The IEA is a reputable agency. It is backed up by data from the US Energy Information Administration, from our own Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics, from Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, as well as from respected private forecasters Wood Mackenzie and the Salva Report. Even gas producers and oil producers like BP and ExxonMobil would say that coal has a bright future. The Leader of the Opposition himself went down to Cessnock about a year ago and told the miners there that we were a mining nation! Yet they come into this place and say they are going to back the Greens and sacrifice the mineworkers of North Queensland for these cheap and nasty Green votes. Shame on them!

That is not all they are going to do to job-creating industries across Australia. They are going to bring in a 50 to 60 per cent renewable energy target.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

That is the policy that was voted on at your national conference. I wonder, Joel, which way you voted, mate! Which way did you vote? Did you cast your vote in favour of the greenies or in favour of the workers? It would have been with the greenies, mate, because you guys are all talk!

If you want to hear from reputable Labor people about this, let us go to former Labor senator John Black, who said that this will play out worse amongst traditional Labor voters in provincial areas where people tend to dig up coal—and I have to tell you: it will. I know, because I represent that kind of area. He said it would be viewed favourably by inner-city green professional people in secure, well-paid jobs—those who are living in the 'goat-cheese circle'. That is now the Labor demographic: the welfare system and the goat-cheese circle! You can stick to the goat-cheese circle, because we will be the ones representing the workers. We will be the ones representing the mineworkers. We will be the ones representing job creation in this country, while you guys block progress.

See this speech in context