Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this month, accompanied by Labor leader Anthony Albanese, I visited BHP's Kwinana nickel refinery in my electorate of Brand. Kwinana is where I was born, and the nickel refinery has been operating there for about 50 years—just a couple of years more than me. I have driven up and down Patterson Road in Rockingham countless times during my life. For much of that time, and especially in recent years, there has been a growing threat of the closure of the nickel refinery. Nickel was always an unloved commodity and global prices were in the doldrums. But now, as the world moves towards decarbonisation, BHP's operations in Kwinana are firmly back in business. In fact, they are now expanding. That means more jobs for people in my electorate and elsewhere.

Nickel is in demand because it is essential to creating the lithium ion batteries that power electric vehicles. Last year Nickel West in Kwinana sold around 70 per cent of its nickel product to battery manufacturers around the world, making BHP Kwinana the world's leading battery material supplier. That's something everyone in Kwinana, everyone in Western Australia and everyone in Australia should be very proud of.

Just a couple of days before visiting the refinery I was in Kalgoorlie in Western Australia's Goldfields, the original heart of the state's mining industry. There I saw the starting point of the process that culminates at the Kwinana refinery. The nickel mined in the Goldfields is processed firstly through BHP's mills at Kambalda, Mount Keith and Leinster. The ore is then smelted at the Kalgoorlie nickel smelter before being transported via rail to Kwinana, from whence that nickel sulphate is transported around the world.

When I was in Kalgoorlie I also had the chance to visit the grave of my great, great grandfather Eli Pizer, who, in the 1890s, packed up his four children and his life in Melbourne to join the luck of the Western Australian gold rush. It's my family's linked to the great gold rush of Western Australia. It's a similar story for many Western Australians who can trace their ancestry back to the Victorians who came over to help mine and develop Kalgoorlie. When I was there I also went 500 metres underground at the Northern Star's South Kalgoorlie Gold Mine, where I gained an even greater appreciation of the very hard work that miners in Kalgoorlie play to the future of this nation, but miners right around the country, who do very hard work in very difficult conditions.

I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Ali Kent, elected as the new member for Kalgoorlie in the recent, remarkable Western Australian election. Ali Kent will be a great representative for the people and businesses of Kwinana. Like Ali, my message to mining communities across the nation is simple: Labor supports mining and the jobs it creates. We support the entire role of the resources sector in helping Australia and the world transition to net zero emissions.