Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The socialist Left are on the march. We know that the member for Grayndler is seeing some acute weakness in the Leader of the Opposition, so he is of course leading his band of socialist revolutionaries. It is not dissimilar to what is happening in the state of Queensland, because there we have the same situation: the socialist Left in Queensland, under their fearless leader, Jackie Trad, the deputy premier, is trying to topple the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. This Labor Party factional civil war is almost like a Shakespearean play, but the ramifications are in the real world. If it were not for the material adverse impact of what is happening in that Queensland saga it would be entertaining.

In Queensland this internal Labor Party factional battle is putting at risk a $16.5 billion investment by the Adani Group—$16.5 billion—all because the Labor state government cabinet, at the 11th hour, cannot make a decision around the terms of the deal relating to royalties. This deal process for the Adani investment has been going on since 2010. It has been going on for seven years. For seven years they have been trying to get this deal over the line. If you go back seven years, Gillard was just lining up Rudd. That is how long ago it was. The iPad was just about to be launched. Syria was at peace. But in all the time that has passed, the Adani deal has been up against legal and political activism, with at least 10 appeals and judicial processes as a hurdle to be jumped.

We have had the Greens and GetUp. We have had groups that are purported to be environmental groups, funded partly by overseas interests, at times enjoying taxpayer subsidisation, trying to block this major investment. Seven years later, here we are: the 11th hour of the deal, but the Queensland state Labor government has decided to have an internal civil war because one person wants to be premier over the other. It raises the question: what is wrong with the Adani deal? What is it that the Left, what is it that the Labor Party, with the Greens, do not want to see in this deal? Either they do not want to see jobs or they do not want to see the Indian people have electricity.

In Townsville alone there is an 11.3 per cent unemployment rate, with youth unemployment almost double that. We have an opportunity for the Galilee Basin, with six potential mines in the pipeline, to produce 15,000 jobs, and the Labor Party wants to mess it up at the 11th hour of the Adani deal. They do not care about the jobs. In India there are 240 million people without electricity. For every one Australian there are 10 Indians without electricity, but the Left of the Labor Party do not want the Adani deal to go through. They have absolute disregard for the Indian people.

Or is it just the fact that they completely do not understand the very basics of economics and commerce? You do not at the 11th hour of a deal mess it up, because you are compromising not only the interests of that deal and the interests of the people and workers particularly of Northern Queensland; you are also comprising our national interest as a country because you are raising sovereign risk. We are an open, free-market liberal democracy that is very reliant on capital coming into Australia. If the Labor Party allows the left to stranglehold these investments coming in, they put at risk our national interests.