Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Resources and Energy and the Minister for Tourism. Can you update the House on recent investments in the resources sector and what it means for the Australian economy and, of course, for Australian jobs?

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hunter for the question because it enables me to address the underlying fundamental strength of the Australian economy. Over the summer period, key resource investments have again reinforced the fact that Australia is a world-leading destination for investment in the mining industry. ABARES estimates that at the moment we have planned and committed capital investment of a total of $455 billion. This is in essence about investment, which in turn creates jobs—something the coalition never wants to speak about. More importantly, most of this investment has occurred since the government's announcements of the MRRT and the refinement of the PRRT.

There has been a 34 per cent increase in committed and planned capital investment in Australia since April 2011 and a 74 per cent increase from October 2010. Perhaps more importantly, it is also very much focused on key commodity sectors such as oil and gas, iron ore and coal. Perhaps the most recent investment was announced yesterday by Rio Tinto of an additional $3.4 billion expansion of the iron ore sector in north-west Western Australia. Perhaps the most pleasing was the Ichthys announcement in Darwin, a $34 billion investment, which is going to be a game-changer for Northern Australia. This effectively represents one of the largest ever investments in Australia. It represents 3,000 additional construction jobs but, perhaps more importantly, it represents 700 long-term, highly-skilled, well-paying jobs in operations. It is estimated that it is going to add 20 per cent to the Northern Territory's gross state product. It is a very significant long-term economic opportunity for Australia. But already, yesterday we had a major announcement, for example, by Clough engineering of a $140 million contract for construction related to the Ichthys project, this added to an announcement last week of a further $350 million commitment for construction activities for Clough engineering relating to the $39 billion Wheatstone project.

I simply want to reinforce that our fundamentals are very strong from an economic perspective. This commitment represents in the LNG sector alone $175 billion. This is going to create major jobs in construction, big Australian content, and long-term well-paid jobs for construction workers. I simply say it is about time the coalition stop talking down the Australian economy because the record speaks for itself.