Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Macdonald for his question on this very important matter—a facility in Brisbane that supports up to 1,500 jobs, including 450 jobs at Gibson Island. It is also the only location in Australia where urea is manufactured—a very important input to our agricultural sector. So it is an incredibly important piece of infrastructure for our country. The government has been well aware of the Incitec Pivot's challenges to supply an adequate amount of gas to its facility, and it is great news for Queensland and great news for Australia that, on Monday, Incitec Pivot was able to reach a deal with Central Petroleum    for a 12-month 32-terajoules-a-day gas supply contract that will help keep that plant open. This is very important for our country, and it is at least in part thanks to the action the government has taken on a range of fronts to avert a gas supply crisis that we faced 12 months ago.

As I outlined to the Senate earlier this week, last year we announced a framework to control gas exports if required to make sure there's enough gas in this country. Indeed, we made that announcement at the Gibson Island fertiliser plant in April last year. Since that announcement, and in subsequent agreements with the gas industry, more than 70 petajoules of gas has come back onto the domestic market that would have otherwise been exported. That has meant that there is more gas in the market. It's helped bring down prices by around 25 per cent in most markets. Prices in Australia now are back down, well below what they are in North Asia and exports markets; whereas, 12 months ago the price in Australia was about the same as it was in North Asia, which was quite a paradoxical situation.

We will continue to act to make sure that businesses right around Australia—not just Incitec Pivot—have adequate supplies of gas and that we protect these very important manufacturing jobs. To have these jobs we need sensible energy policies, we need cheap energy, and we need to make sure that we don't impose unnecessary burdens on our energy sector which would cost jobs and hurt families in this country.