Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for his question, and I congratulate him on his re-election in the wonderful seat of Tangney.

As he knows, Australia's resources sector has been the bedrock of our nation's prosperity for decades. The sector underpins hundreds of thousands of jobs right across this great country, and will be integral to a future made in Australia. Today, the iron ore industry alone is exporting well north of $100 billion a year of this commodity, and investment in new iron ore mines remains strong.

Take, for instance, Mitsui's $8.4 billion investment in Rio Tinto's Rhodes Ridge iron ore project, which is a magnificent vote of confidence in the Pilbara. Mitsui is one of Japan's premier global investment houses and has been a driver of Australia's iron ore industry since the sixties. This $8 billion investment is the single largest investment Mitsui has ever made anywhere in the world in its nearly 80-year history in the Pilbara, in the resources sector, and its importance cannot be underestimated. It demonstrates the stable investment environment that policies of this Albanese Labor government are creating to ensure a future made in Australia.

In June, I attended the opening of Rio's $2 billion Western Ridge iron ore mine with Premier Cook, and that's a significant extension of the Channar mine and builds on the important relationship between the Australian resources sector and China's Baowu Group.

It says a great deal about how disconnected the coalition is from our exceptional resources sector. They all lined up to have a crack at our largest trading relationship while the CEOs of Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue and Hancock Prospecting lined up alongside this Prime Minister on his successful visit to China to support the ballast of our trading relationship, the great iron ore industry of the Pilbara that employs hundreds of thousands of Australians.

This blinkered and dense response of the coalition's is the same one that saw them vote against the production tax credits for critical minerals.

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