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

I'd like to proudly place on record my support for the Carmichael coal project in Central and North Queensland. I support this project because it will create thousands of local jobs. I support this project because it will create local business opportunities—in Mackay, Bowen, Townsville and everywhere in between—at a time when those local business opportunities and jobs are desperately needed. Townsville's unemployment rate in July was 9½ per cent, and youth unemployment is running above 17 per cent. The Carmichael coal project already has more than 200 workers in Townsville alone, and there are workers also employed in Bowen. These are not 'fake' jobs, as they were called by the Labor Party. They are real jobs, employing real North Queenslanders and injecting real money into local communities. So it has been great news in North and Central Queensland to hear that the Carmichael coal project rail line has been redesigned to make construction of that rail line quicker and cheaper and to hear that workers are gearing up to start construction on that rail line.

It's bad news for Labor, because they need to oppose that project to attract Green votes and preferences at the next election. So it was excruciating to watch the Leader of the Opposition in the media on Sunday trying to come up with the right weasel words for the greenies in Melbourne to know he will shut down this project, while letting Queenslanders think he continues to support jobs and mining. He said:

If and when we are elected … I'll sit down with my Cabinet colleagues, we will work on the best science available, there will be no taxpayer money subsidising this coal project and we will see from there.

The Courier-Mail's Renee Viellaris provided an interpretation of that doublespeak, writing:

In a nutshell, Adani has to start construction by the next election because, if Shorten wins, the mine will be toast.

She went on to say:

His other telling line was about talking to his Cabinet colleagues and working on the best science available. Most of his influential frontbenchers do not support the mine.

She's right. Labor's climate change and energy spokesperson, Mark Butler, made a startling admission on a video being used by the Mackay Conservation Group to promote a petition calling for Labor to stop the Carmichael coal project and other mines in Central and North Queensland. He said:

I do not support opening new mines in the Galilee Basin, whether it's by Adani, Clive Palmer or anyone else for that matter.

He doesn't want to stop one mining project; he wants to stop them all. The Carmichael project is the first of several mines in the pipeline and is now poised to go ahead. The only things standing in the way of the local jobs and local business opportunities that will be delivered by the Carmichael coal project are the Labor Party threatening to tear up the approvals for this mine and the rabid green movement that the Labor Party is trying to appease. Shame on them. I'm going to stand up for local jobs.