QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:38): The mining industry employs 314,000 Australians directly and 800,000 indirectly. These are largely breadwinner jobs that create families. Many are union members.

Minister, why is the supposed party of the worker showing no interest in a project that will create tens of thousands of breadwinner jobs in mining, steel, ceramics, fertiliser, industrial gas—including oxygen—and cement, which we badly need for housing construction and to revitalise the productivity in this country?