Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I am not a sceptic. I believe the climate is changing. I pointed out earlier—and perhaps Senator Cameron did not hear—that in my city of Townsville, where my office is, 1,200 jobs are at risk. They are the ones whose interests you should be looking after. You are supposedly a union organiser.

Do you know what the competition is now? They are getting the nickel ore from the Philippines where, some years ago, they put a refinery in mothballs. They can take the mothballs off and instead of exporting the ore from the Philippines to Townsville and creating 1,200 jobs for your members—you are supposed to be looking after those 1,200 working families—we can have a situation where those jobs are at threat of being exported offshore to the Philippines. There is a mothballed refinery in the Philippines where they can just drive the ore down the road and put it into the refinery. They do not have too many restrictions on emissions there; they do in Townsville.