Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This House has heard many times me and other people speak about the clean energy corridor. The clean energy corridor is a copper string proposal to build a transmission line effectively from Townsville to the heart of the north-west mineral province at Mount Isa. As I talk, we have found huge coal anomalies at Hughenden along the way, about halfway. We are talking about the development of 16 mines. One of those mines alone, Legend Phosphate, is worth $2,000 million a year to the Australian economy. There is no doubt that those 15 or 16 mines will produce $12,000 million for the Australian people and create 8,000 jobs. A further 3,000 jobs will be created by wind labs and the solar biofuels project at Pentland.

Why is this not happening? Because of the narrow, selfish interests of the company based in Zurich. They have decided they will not buy. They have a little sweetheart deal for themselves, so the rest of us can go jump in the ocean. The same company are flying in about a quarter of their workforce to Mount Isa. They have announced they are going to close down copper smelting in Mount Isa. They are closing down the copper refinery in Townsville. They are going to close down 15 potential mines and wind labs in Pentland. (Time expired)