George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have grave news to report to the chamber this morning for the economic development in my electorate in North and Central Queensland. Admittedly, this news is coming from The Guardian, which is an unreliable source when it comes to matters of the resources sector, because they are very much against these projects. Nonetheless, the reports are saying that Adani has suspended all engineering works associated with its Carmichael mine and the Abbot Point expansion. This morning I have tried to get in touch with sources in Adani to verify this. I have not been able to do so, but it is extremely alarming. I advise the Queensland government upon its change of direction on the Abbot Point expansion project, that they needed to have to the federal government by June/July all of the necessary approvals, environmental impact statement, for this project to go ahead, otherwise there is the distinct possibility that it could collapse. It is now reaching the end of June and we have not seen that environmental impact statement. I warn the state government that if they want to jeopardise thousands upon thousands of jobs and the future economic prosperity of the central and north Queensland regions then they should delay this further, because if they do delay it by many weeks further this project will fall over. By delaying this, the state government is kowtowing essentially to the extreme green movement, who want to tell out-of-work families in my electorate that jobs must not be created or the planet will be doomed.

They have created the perception that the reef is going to be mined, dredged and bulldozed for a shipping highway and they claim that climate change is going to destroy the reef tomorrow, all because the Carmichael mine, the Abbot Point expansion and the associated rail infrastructure could go ahead. If these fringe-dwelling lunatics and the dillydallying by the Queensland Labor government are successful then they are going to kill off this project, and that will destroy tens of thousands of job opportunities. Their actions will have zero impact on the reef. Emissions will actually go up, because what will happen is that this project, instead of being done in Australia—India still needs the coal—will simply come from somewhere else. It will come from somewhere else that has less in terms of labour laws and environmental regulations and will probably be spewing out more carbon dioxide emissions.

I warn the state government: please get on with the approval of this project. It needs to be done now or otherwise these jobs are going to go up in smoke. We need this project for the economic development of central and north Queensland. People are on their knees in places like Mackay, Bowen and even Townsville, begging the state government to get this approval done and get it to the federal government so we can sign off and create the jobs.