Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday was a very sad day for South Australia, and one would think that the member for Wakefield would at least come in here and show a little compassion for the people who are already losing their jobs. In the two weeks before BHP's announcement yesterday about the Olympic Dam project more than 600 jobs went in Roxby Downs, and the sackings have already started as a result of the Olympic Dam decision. All of this is an absolute catastrophe for our economy. So much had been staked on the future of the Olympic Dam project in South Australia. The South Australian government was intending to use the project to bankroll its future. It had already factored in the royalties from this mining project, which is now not going to eventuate—not, at least, in the short or medium term.

The member for Wakefield said that the project has only been deferred. That is not right, Member for Wakefield. This project is being totally reassessed because it is being deemed unviable, and it is being deemed unviable because the costs of development are too high. We know that the costs of development in Australia in the last few years have blown out exponentially—and there are a number of reasons for that. But the government is implicit in raising the costs because it has added to the difficulties. When I was interviewed earlier today, I said: 'It's like a pole vault—when you put the bar at 5½ metres, is it the first five metres that mean you miss the jump, or is it the last half-metre you put on the top? It does not really matter—if you make it higher, it's harder to get over.' In this case, the government has been complicit in making doing business in Australia that much more difficult.

For the last five years, my community, the electorate of Grey, has been through the community consultation, the debate over the desalination plant and the debate on the unloading platforms in the Spencer Gulf. We have talked about the increased strain and what we will do with the Port Augusta Bridge. We have talked about energy supplies and electricity for Roxby Downs. We have talked about expenditure to accommodate the freight task. All the towns in my electorate have been preparing so that they can participate in the supply of fly-in fly-out workers for Roxby Downs. Business has been positioning itself to take advantage of the opportunities. Moreover, BHP and the South Australian government have been out there spruiking, urging businesses on and telling them to get ready for the boom that is coming—and now it is not coming. They have been encouraging businesses to invest their hard-earned dollars so that they do not miss out when the boom starts starts—but, of course, now the boom is not starting. We are going to have to pick ourselves up off the floor and see what this means for the electorate of Grey and the economy of South Australia as a whole. In the short term, at least, all the talk has come to nought and we are all suffering. The member for Wakefield accuses me of being gleeful, but I can tell you that to me this is like losing a member of the family; the member for Wakefield has no understanding.

He says he cares for the 16,000 workers at GMH, and so he should, but we lost 20,000 jobs yesterday, and there are more to come.

The South Australia government have been out there huffing and puffing—Tom Koutsantonis has been out there—saying: 'We'll stand up to BHP. We won't extend their indenture bill.' Give me a break! For a start, who else has got $30 billion? And, incidentally, there is just a little problem: BHP already own the leases. There has been this hairy-chested thumping and blaming of BHP instead of actually having a look at some of the root causes of this increase in the degree of difficulty of doing business in Australia.

I think it is time that the Prime Minister took a little bit of responsibility. She will never admit that the carbon tax, for instance, might have just added a little bit of difficulty to this—not even one iota. In fact, if you listened, once again, to the member for Wakefield, you would think everything is rosy: the South Australian economy is just rolling along fine! He talks about all the new mines we have had. There have been some new mines in South Australia, but a lot of them are not all that big. There are a couple of beauties. There is one at Prominent Hill, in my electorate, and there is Arafura Resources out in the west, but there are a whole string of others that we were hoping to get off the ground.

There is Rex Minerals, down on York Peninsula, and the Arafura refinery in Whyalla. I cannot tell you how important that refinery is to Whyalla, because we need to diversify. A lot has been said about Whyalla, mainly by the government in this place, and mainly by that clown of a minister who sang to us with his beat box out in the yard. A lot has been said about Whyalla, but we need to diversify. The investment platform that this government has supplied in Australia is actually putting those projects under more strain. We are looking to develop the iron ore resources of the Eyre Peninsula, and yet in all this time, when we talk about the mining boom, not one new port has been constructed in South Australia—but, boy, we need them—and not one new railway line. And now the Minister for Resources and Energy says the boom is over. The boom is over, so we have missed the boat.

I come to the comments of BHP. BHP say that this project, Olympic Dam, is not going ahead because of two reasons. Let us look first at commodity prices. Yes, commodity prices have come off, but remember this mine was not to produce any ore for another five years, so, if they are talking about commodity prices, they can only be talking about profits today that are underwriting the investments of today. So, if their profit has come off, you know that is one of the reasons. Another reason that their profit has come off is that they have been hit with two new taxes, and they have announced a 35 per cent write-down in profits, so they are nervous. Their profits are slipping away. They do not have the money to invest. The government cannot claim that they have not put their hand into that pile of money, saying, 'Yes, we want a bit more for us, because we promised all this stuff to the Australian electorate and we don't know how to pay for it.'

And then of course the BHP executive says it is capital costs. Well, it is capital costs, and we know what makes up capital. It is not just a piece of steel. It is not just a roof on a donga. It is not just a backhoe or a truck. It is all those things that go into making it. It is the transport costs. It is the labour costs. It is the cost of building anything in Australia. It all incorporates. It is inclusive of the taxes, because they become incorporated in the capital costs, and it is capital costs that have blown out substantially, excessively, in Australia in the last few years—and pretty much in the time frame that coincides with this government.

BHP are not fools. The government has been making much about the fact that they have not implicitly named either the carbon tax or the mining tax in this particular decision. I understand. I know quite well that Roxby Downs is not going to be subject to the mining tax, at least in the government's current form, but that mining tax has been affecting their other profits. But they are not fools. They know that they have to go on and deal with the government tomorrow and the day after and the day after—for a little less than 12 months, I hope—so they are not likely to go out there and be so critical and so honest with the government in public as to say, 'Your taxes have helped kill off this project.' They are careful with their language. They are diplomats. What would we expect them to do? None of us would do any different.

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