Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to talk about the important challenge facing the Australian coal industry—an industry that is exceptionally important to our future. Australia supplies approximately 30 per cent of the global coal supply, exporting coal to more than 35 countries around the world. Coal is Australia’s largest commodity export—as the member for Capricornia, who is at the table, appreciates—with exports exceeding 270 million tonnes a year. Australia’s coal industry was valued at $24.5 billion in 2005-06. The coal industry directly employs 30,000 people in Australia and indirectly benefits thousands of Australians. A great proportion of those employed in the coal industry are employed in regional Australia. It is the lifeblood of regional areas of Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.

The problem is that we are losing our international influence in the coal industry. In the past two years, the value of coal has risen considerably, but Australia has barely increased the volume of its coal exports. Alarmingly, in that time Indonesia has overtaken Australia as the world’s largest exporter of coal. Australia’s coal industry is facing challenges right now which affect its ability to efficiently supply coal and remain competitive during the current resources boom.

In recent months there have been constant complaints by the coal industry about the great delays in coal exports. We have seen photos of bulk carriers dotting the coastline at Newcastle, Dalrymple and Hay Point. Ships are waiting an average of 27.3 days for coal to be loaded and are being charged tens of thousands of dollars in demurrage fees a day. Mining companies are losing revenue daily, with a loss to the industry of $1 billion in the past year alone. Hundreds of contractors and miners have already been given redundancies, with hundreds more facing the very real prospect of job losses.

Industry and governments have been pointing fingers at each other as to who is to blame, but the fact remains that Australia is not exporting coal fast enough to satisfy market demand. If we do not start to address these problems promptly, we will lose investors and we will lose the confidence of our valuable export markets. Australia has not invested adequately in the infrastructure needed to supply coal. At the 2007 national conference of the Labor Party, I clearly stated, as the shadow minister for transport, that we as a nation need to invest more and state governments need to work in partnership with the private sector and the Australian government to fix our infrastructure problems and to end the blame game.

Labor’s New directions for Australia’s coal industry policy paper supports industry and governments working together to solve this huge challenge. We cannot afford to lose further market capacity. Included in Labor’s commitment to the coal industry is a $500 million Commonwealth government contribution to stimulate $1.5 billion in investment to develop clean coal technology, which is also a potential huge export earner for Australia.

On behalf of the opposition, I simply say that if we do not get these things right, we as a nation will be the losers, and key regional communities in Australia will also lose potential job opportunities and training opportunities for our young people. We need to invest, and we have to make sure that we overcome the infrastructure problems that currently exist in order to build our capacity so that we can harvest the best possible results out of the current resources boom. We will be setting ourselves up for thousands of job losses and billions of dollars in lost revenue if we do not start to solve these problems. There is also the potential to compromise the ongoing viability of our mining industry.

People should note that international companies are threatening to buy coal outside of Australia. In the last two years, Indonesia has overtaken Australia as the global leader in coal exports. Indonesia is not experiencing the capacity constraints that we are in Australia, with the self-regulated industry that currently exists. Australian coal is of an excellent standard. Australia also has great capacity to increase coal exports. Unfortunately, the record shows that we as a nation have already fallen behind—from being the world leader in coal exports—despite the global resource boom. We cannot allow this to continue to occur. There is an urgent need for the state governments, in partnership with the private sector and the Australian government, to end the blame game and to start solving the infrastructure problems that are holding back the coal industry. (Time expired)

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