Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I make my contribution on the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013, I think it is absolutely fantastic that senators from every other state want to talk about Western Australia. As a Western Australian, I think we should be talking a lot more about Western Australia. The truth of the matter is, they cannot help themselves. They have been told to get down to the chamber and do everything they can, because of the Senate by-election—even if they know nothing about the mining industry or Western Australia. The dog whistle is out.

I made a contribution in this chamber the other day because everyone wanted to talk about Western Australia. And here we go again. You can see that the campaign by Mr Abbott and the Liberals is all about what they are not going to do: they are not going to have a mining tax, they are not going to have a price on carbon and there is no way known we can let anyone come to Australian shores if they want to seek asylum. That has already been touched on by Senator Macdonald. I listened intently to Senator Milne. I listened intently to Senator Edwards and still scratch my head. He is a very intelligent guy but he is quite way off the mark on this issue.

Senator Edwards talked about sovereign risk and quoted Mr Mitch Hooke, from the Minerals Council of Australia. He also quoted—I didn't catch the gentleman's name—the CEO of AngloGold Ashanti saying that Australia is facing sovereign risk. I think he was alluding to this in the context of having a minerals resource rent tax. This is the South African CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, a gold company. These are misleading comments that come from that side of the chamber in this debate. Gold is not even affected by the minerals resource rent tax. So we do not even have senators making an intelligent contribution on the tax, working out where it is paid or who it affects.

I also heard Senator Edwards talk about foreign investors and that they are frightened off, I think was the context of the contribution. He said, 'The grown-ups are now in charge.' I assume that is a follow-on from Mr Abbott's ridiculous comments after the election about how much we love foreign investment. I am the chairman of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee that deals with agriculture, regional development and all modes of transport—road, rail, sea and air—and I have to listen to this nonsense that the grown-ups are in charge and they love foreign investors. Someone forgot to tell Archer Daniels Midland. Someone forgot to tell Mr Abbott that he did an absolute backflip. The GrainCorp sale came up and was going to be purchased by none other than an American company. We can't have Americans investing in Australia! That is before we start worrying about the Chinese. That was from the other side of the chamber, certainly not from our side. What an absolutely two-faced contribution that was.

This is the problem we have. That side of the chamber pulled a dog whistle. They do not even go to the facts. They cannot tell the people of Western Australia what their plan is. I asked here on Thursday what the Abbott government's plan for Western Australia was. There is no plan for Western Australia. What is the Abbott government's plan for Australian jobs? Wait till we get to the car-manufacturing industry in Victoria and the jobs in South Australia that will be going, and the associated jobs in vehicle components. What about the 5,000 jobs at Qantas? There is another one. The grown-ups are in charge, are they?

The grown-ups have been courted by Mr Alan Joyce, the CEO of Qantas, since December last year. I am told that Qantas visited every backbencher they could get to. They did not come anywhere near me. I wonder why. I know why. It is because Australian jobs are going to be offshored, if Qantas have their way. They come in here and have their cap out. Under the leadership of the chairman, Mr Leigh Clifford, and the CEO, Mr Alan Joyce, Qantas have their begging cap out. They want a debt guarantee. The grown-ups in charge thumbed their noses at them. The grown-ups in charge—and it makes me sick even repeating this line—could not give a darn about Australian jobs. They are happy to see all those Australian jobs go offshore. So, if everyone wants to talk about Western Australia, at least tell the truth. And Mr Abbott—if your advisers are out there, I am only up here on the first floor—what is your plan for WA? You have no plan for WA.

I want to get to the core of the bill. I have some interesting figures here. As you would know, Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, and a lot in the mining industry know, in 2009 I was fortunate enough to become the Deputy Chair of the National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce. It was chaired by the Hon. Gary Gray. No-one in this parliament would be within cooee of Mr Gray in terms of knowledge and wisdom within the mining industry—no-one. We travelled the country. We went everywhere we could. We talked to miners, we talked to constructors, we talked to educators and we talked to employers and trainers. It was all about the announcement of that fantastic project off the coast of Western Australia by none other than an American company—sorry, Senator Edwards. The company wanted to put $40-odd billion into the Gorgon project. Then we had to work out, for all these projects around the country—not only those in WA: Gorgon, Wheatstone, Browse, Rio's wharf extension at Cape Lambert and associated mines—where we were going to get all these workers. That was the intent. It was a really interesting committee, and I was thankful to be on it.

The mining industry is healthy. If you listen to the nonsense and mistruths coming from that side of the chamber you would think the mining industry was in decline. You would think that in Western Australia the lights were going to be turned off soon because there are no jobs. Unemployment is sneaking up. There is no argument about that. Jobs are being reduced or lost or not replaced in the mining sector, because construction has slowed down.

Production is going full-steam ahead—I will share some figures with the chamber to show how well the mining industry is doing—but the number of construction jobs has reduced. But they have not reduced to the point—which you would believe if you listened to those on the other side of the chamber—where the industry has been destroyed because a small tax has been put on it. And, may I add, it is a small profits based tax.

I was in the chair listening intently to Senator Milne's speech. She made some very interesting points about that profits based tax. A lot of her points I do not agree with; some, I do. The February employment figures show that, while unemployment remains steady at six per cent, 47,300 jobs were created last month across the nation. That is great, but, while the national news was positive, the data was not so favourable for WA. As I said, that was because of the reduction in construction jobs. Our unemployment level has hit 5.9 per cent.

I want to share something that is very important for those who had the misfortune of believing everything that Senator Edwards said. The Wheatstone job is a new gas project off the coast of WA. There are 6,000 jobs to come in the construction of the Wheatstone job. Gorgon is the Chevron Australia project that has been going, now, for four years. Employment for that project peaked at 9,000 jobs, but there are still, now, anywhere between 5,000 and 7,000 jobs there.

We have all heard about Roy Hill. I have not had—and I probably will not have—a lot of good things to say about Ms Rinehart. I disagree with a lot of her positions, but this is one positive thing she is doing for the country. Good luck to those who will be employed on the Roy Hill job. There are currently 5,000 people employed in the construction of the mine and rail at Roy Hill. Employment is eventually going to get to 10,000 jobs. Rio Tinto has three or four more projects about to start. So, regardless of the nonsense that has been coming from some senators on the other side of the chamber, the mining industry is healthy. The mining industry has not shut.

There have been nonsense comments from gold CEOs. I take that back; I am only assuming that the AngloGold Ashanti CEO made a comment in terms of the MRRT. That could just have been Senator Edwards's bent on what was said.

We also have an unprecedented amount of exploration occurring in Western Australia, especially in oil and gas. In the Kimberley, which you know very well, Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, we possibly have one of the greatest deposits of LNG, shale gas and oil in the Canning Basin. This is the next big thing. I think the Canning Basin is predicted to be about four or six times the size of the Browse Basin.

The comments coming from Liberal Party members because of this election campaign do really frustrate me. I would like to talk about the state Liberal contribution—the Barnett government's contribution—to mining. The Barnett government has been a shocker. It has been attacking everything that comes from Canberra. Whenever any issue was raised in Canberra the Barnett government extended the rabbit-proof fence in case the eastern-staters got there. The Barnett government knocked every project. Well, Mr Barnett, it ain't working any more, because they are your mates who are in power federally.

Mr Barnett's contribution to the mining industry in Western Australia must be told in this chamber. Western Australians have to be reminded of Mr Barnett's spectacular contribution. Let us talk about what happened when he nailed his colours to the land based Browse Basin project, which was going to be developed somewhere outside of Broome. Woodside was the proponent along with, I think, five other companies—including BHP and Mitsui. Negotiations were going on. I was an avid supporter of a land based gas facility. I still am. I wish it were going to happen. Unfortunately it did not. There were a number of reasons why the costs did not stack up.

Mr Barnett charged in over the top of the Aboriginal people—the Goolarabooloo Jabirr Jabirr people—who were negotiating up there with Woodside. He told them that he knew what was best for them. He rode over the top of their negotiations and chose the site. The rest is history; nothing has happened. This was the major thing Premier Barnett was going to do for Western Australia. Failed.

Another major Barnett proposal was the Oakajee port. For those outside Western Australia, Oakajee port was going to be built north of Geraldton. Geraldton is some 430 kilometres north of Perth. It was a port that was going to be built in partnership with government and private money. The Japanese—oops-a-daisy, that's another foreign investor; fancy that!—were going to build this big port because the next big thing for WA, apart from the Canning Basin in the Kimberley, is magnetite.

So all those mid-west miners around the Geraldton and Ashburton region needed to get the ore to the port. That was another spectacularly failed project under the hand of no less than the Western Australian Liberal Premier, Colin Barnett. Everything has gone off the rails; it has all collapsed. He has gone to one election—he was very quiet at the second election—saying that this project would be going ahead.

Here is another fantastic contribution from the Barnett Liberal government in WA to the mining industry! I am referring to the Muja AB power station refurbishment. For those who do not know, Muja is at Collie, and Collie is about a two-hour drive south of Perth. Coal has kept that town going since its inception. It is a well-known coalmining area. Mr Barnett, as the leader of the government, promised, I am told, that $100 million was to be spent on reconditioning the power station and bringing it up to meet modern environmental standards for a coal fired station. In an article in a newspaper on 11 May 2009, he said:

Can I stress that $100 million will be private sector investment, not State Government or taxpayer funded.

So what happened? Now we find that at least $280 million of taxpayers' money has been sunk into a bungled refurbishment of the 47-year-old Muja AB power station, which was supposed to cost $100 million, funded entirely from the private sector.

So you see there is a trend. Under the leadership of Premier Colin Barnett, the Western Australian government talks up the good fight, talks up the great talk, but, when it comes to delivering for Western Australians or delivering in the mining industry, his history is pretty abysmal. The scare campaign was an absolute media attack. When former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the proposal for a profits based tax, if you came from another country you would have thought, 'How the heck did this mob ever get out of the Dark Ages?' It was all about rich miners, billionaire miners, whingeing because they possibly had to pay—and I want everyone to understand this—a profits based tax. Once you earned $75 million profit you were expected to pay a tax. For the life of me, I still struggle to see what is wrong with a profits based tax.

I know thousands of workers—I represented 2½ thousand owner-drivers at the TWU when I was there, after I gave up my own small business and my trucking career—and they pay tax every week. Out of every pay packet they pay tax and no-one whinges. You get the odd gripe down at the pub when someone says, 'Crikey, I've lost a little bit more in tax this week; it wasn't worth working those extra four hours,' but billionaires took out full-page ads on the front page of the paper and cried that the Prime Minister would not return their phone calls and that they might have to contribute something back to the Australian taxpayers. This resource is not renewable. One day it is going to go.

Do not get me started on Aboriginal Australia. I have to tell you, our Aboriginal people have not done all that well. When you see what goes on in places like Canada, where the indigenous American Indians have successfully gained employment and business opportunities, we should hang our heads in shame. I can talk from experience as a truck driver, driving through Karratha. I can talk as a truck driver who took the first load of furniture, desks and chairs, to Hearson Cove for Woodside's first office in about 1981 or 1982. The North West Shelf is an absolutely magnificent achievement for our country. It is a fantastic advertisement for what we can do. We should be a leader in the world in oil and gas—there is no argument—but then you drive some 45 kilometres out of Karratha to Roebourne and any self-respecting Australian should feel absolutely disgusted when they see the Third World living conditions in Roebourne. Fortunately, Roebourne is now starting to pick up. I will give credit where credit is due. Roebourne Aboriginal people are now getting gainful employment in Fortescue Metals Group. I take my hat off to Mr Andrew Forrest. I have criticised him up and down dale, but when I actually went there and saw what he is doing for Aboriginal people it was fantastic.

Let's not forget: once you have made $75 million, what is wrong with some contribution back to the Australian people? There are a number of speakers coming after me. For those who may be listening out there or those who may have nothing better to do tonight than read the Hansard, I will stand in this chamber, put my hand on my heart and apologise if at least one more of them does not get up and throw in Mr Joe Bullock—who is our No. 1 Senate candidate—saying he mentioned abandoning the carbon tax, which is not the case, or if they do not somehow weave in asylum seekers. This is the Abbott Liberal government's plan: pull out the dog whistle and not talk about what they are going to do for Australian jobs. How dare they insult the Australian people, saying that the grown-ups are in charge—the grown-ups who do not want to talk about foreign investment, the grown-ups who are happy to see our grain rail in Western Australia closing down as we speak. Tier 3 grain has been cut.

They do not have a plan. They have no plan for this great country. They have no plan for Western Australia. Mr Abbott and the Liberals see WA as the cash cow, and I will tell you why: WA has delivered 12 seats out of 15. I am embarrassed that the Labor Party only has three—I really am—but they do not have to worry about WA. WA will return the seats to them. It is the safe seat scenario. So, Mr Abbott, the challenge is there. I do not know how many times I have to ask: tell us your plan for WA. You have no plan for WA. You have no plan for Australian jobs. I do not support the bill.