Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The ALP have fallen in Western Australia—victims of their own mismanagement, arrogance, incompetence and disgraceful corruption, continuing a pattern which has blighted state politics for 25 years. But, before they are even officially out of office, the results of their abuse of two terms in power are already coming back to haunt us. A massive resources infrastructure project planned for WA was jeopardised by state and federal Labor government meddling led by the federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts and the former WA Minister for State Development, who is now the state’s Leader of the Opposition. It now seems that it may be too late for Western Australia to secure the Inpex LNG processing plant in the Kimberley, with the project going to Darwin instead.

When Inpex came to WA and said they would like to invest up to $20 billion—and this figure represents $10,000 for each man, woman and child in WA—they were not welcomed with open arms, as one would expect. No. Instead, they were told that they would have to wait while consent was obtained from every single one of the disparate Aboriginal groups in that vast region and that the environmental impact must be assessed—an action already carried out by the company at a cost of millions of dollars. The state and federal governments then told Inpex that they hoped to establish a single site in the north-west as a hub for all related resources plants but made no decision on this either. When given the option of serving the interests of an entire state of two million people—a state which props up the rest of the country with its massive resources royalties—the state and federal governments refused. Instead, they decided to serve the narrow self-interest of tree huggers and a handful of native title rabble-rousers—and I make a distinction here from those who genuinely work in the interests of the environment and Aboriginal people. When given a choice between economic rationalism and getting a warm and fuzzy feeling from their middle-class, superannuated, pseudohippy mates, they chose the latter.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few adjectives there.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I am good at adjectives, aren’t I? ‘Wait,’ they told this huge Japanese firm, ‘Hold onto your $20 billion and we’ll get back to you.’

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Less is more.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, they did not. Inpex, which is 30 per cent owned by the Japanese government and has French energy giant Total as a partner in the project, could not afford to wait. Less is more; $20 billion less is not good. The processing plant for the massive Icthys LNG plant will be the biggest resources investment Australia has ever seen and one of Japan’s biggest overseas investments. It is a key element in forward planning for Japanese energy security and is expected to provide up to 10 per cent of Japan’s energy needs when it comes on stream, as well as marking a 50 per cent increase in Australia’s total LNG exports. The first shipments from the plant were expected in Japan in 2012. That schedule has now been pushed back to 2014 by ALP bungling, but Japan will tolerate no further delays.

So, no, they could not await the whim of some disinterested ALP figures. It is a high-stakes project and they required certainty. The company wanted to build their processing plant on the Maret Islands, near where they extract the gas, off the Kimberley coast. But, ultimately, the treatment they received from the WA government and the federal environment minister drove them to consider more extreme options, including spending an extra $700 million to pipe the gas to Darwin and build a processing plant there. The company have since said they have not made a final decision on the plant but have started preparatory drilling in Darwin’s harbour anyway. It seems likely the project will go to Darwin and likely that the ALP governments in both Canberra and Perth knew of this and tried to hush it up before the recent WA election. The new WA Premier, Colin Barnett, is seeking to secure the project for our state, but the signs are that it may be too late—and the federal environment minister could well still veto any plan to site the project in the Kimberley. The message to the global business community is that Australia will take their money but only on Australia’s terms. The message is that we are unreliable and unresponsive. The message is that we don’t care. This is the message being sent by Labor, and this is a disgrace.