Adani made a very important announcement today in Rockhampton that they are proceeding with this project with a changed design for their rail line. Their original design was a 388-kilometre rail line, which was sabotaged for political reasons by the Queensland Labor Party to try to win an election, sabotaged to try to trade off jobs in Northern and Central Queensland for votes in Brisbane.  Read more

On this side of the chamber we want to support all Australian industries to become better and stronger and to provide more jobs and opportunities for Australians. That includes the processed sector, which is very important for Australia in the export of lamb, beef and other products. We can grow those sectors as well as have a sustainable and well-regulated live export trade. Read more

 As I'm sure this chamber is aware, the Paris Agreement is a collective response to the global threat of climate change. It has been signed by a number of countries, including China. Read more

I firmly believe, and the government firmly believes, that we need to find a long-term solution to store our nuclear waste, primarily produced by the world-class facility at Lucas Heights, which produces nuclear medicines that will help to improve the health of, on average, one out of every two Australians during their lifetime. Read more

The government has a laser-like focus to reduce power prices. The No. 1 focus of the Minister for Energy is to reduce prices. Some successes have been made in the past year. Read more

A few years ago the government outlined a visionary white paper to develop northern Australia and, in that white paper, we committed to look at the water resources of three water catchments across the north: the Mitchell River in the cape, the Darwin catchment in the Northern Territory and the Fitzroy River in Western Australia.  Read more

Yesterday, building on announcements we've made recently, the agriculture minister, Mr Littleproud, the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr McCormack, all made further announcements to support our farmers. That takes our assistance to drought affected farmers to $1.8 billion during this drought, recognising this drought in some locations has gone on for many years, particularly in western Queensland Read more

We do of course share his interest in ensuring that the Murray-Darling is returned to environmental health, but we also want to ensure that communities that rely on the use of water have their jobs and industry sustained as well and that those communities continue into the future in a healthy way.  Read more

At that meeting last week, it was very, very clear from the delegation from Victoria that they were focused on one thing: their re-election, not the reduction of power bills for the Australian people. That was their focus. Right through this process, the Victorian government have otherwise supported the National Energy Guarantee.  Read more

I am opposed to the Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill 2015 because I believe in the sanctity of human life. Leaving the state to assist and sanction suicide, in my view, would diminish the special and unique gift of human life. Read more