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

There is a downturn in Australian coal, mainly due to global prices being down, which was brought on by an oversupply of the market, but it has not been aided in the last few years by high input costs such as Labor's carbon tax and the sovereign risk created in the form of Labor's mining tax. On the ground level in the Mackay region, we have witnessed the result—thousands of job losses and local businesses closing their doors or drastically downsizing—but it is not all doom and gloom. The Galilee Basin is set to power ahead thanks to investment by Indian energy company Adani and a recent commitment by the Queensland LNP government to help fund the needed infrastructure to get Adani's investment on the ground. We have not seen a commitment to infrastructure and growing the regions like that since the great days of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

I noted last week a childish and immature BuzzFeed list sponsored by Labor which derided the Prime Minister for saying he believed coal had a future. They do not think coal has a future because Labor's environment spokesman, Mark Butler, went on the ABC advocating for the coal industry to be wound up, and this week we see Queensland Labor's leader, Annastacia Palaszczuk, promising to scrap the infrastructure commitment of the LNP and throw the 27,000 jobs that could be created from the project out of the window. Political commentators have long said that there is a war over the heart and soul of the ALP: on one side the inner-city eco-trendies and on the other side the working class. The battle is over; the war is won—the eco-trendies are waving the green victory flag. Labor has sold out the workers— (Time expired)