Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Susan McDonald has lashed Labor’s new working holiday visa arrangements, warning regional employers will struggle to keep businesses running and get crops to market.

The Federal Government’s treatment of Queensland councils is shaping as the one disaster they won’t be able to recover from.
Labor’s proposed changes to the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements should alarm every Queenslander who relies on the food and resources produced in our regions.

The Coalition will introduce legislation to help both the Whyalla steelworks blast furnace and bring back the manufacture of structural steel, as well as help the Tomago aluminium smelter and Queensland’s Boyne aluminium smelter, by fast-tracking critical energy projects and reversing Labor’s changes that hold back critical projects.

The Coalition’s number one gas policy priority is more gas, for Australians, delivering cheaper power bills. Today’s release of Labor’s draft domestic gas reservation policy provides a welcome opportunity for the Coalition to scrutinise critical domestic energy policy by a Government that has failed to deliver cheaper energy for Australians.

The Coalition has a clear plan to get Australia’s gas industry moving again. It means more Australian gas, more investment, affordable and greater energy security. 

Anthony Albanese continues to snub regional councils expressing concerns about new federal disaster funding arrangements, telling ratepayers to pick up the bill for his Government’s cuts.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s claims that his new disaster funding arrangements will cut bureaucracy ring hollow while Cloncurry is still waiting to get on with critical airport works he announced funding for more than seven months ago.

The Albanese Labor Government is wrong to fix its migration mess by choking off the backpackers who pick Australian crops and keep regional tourism and hospitality businesses running.

Australia has lost the opportunity to secure national support for a regional New South Wales site with massive critical mineral potential, leaving the US to seize the day with a $566 million investment.
Shadow Minister for Resources Senator Susan McDonald and Shadow Assistant Minister for Resources and Federal Member for Parkes, Jamie Chaffey MP, today said the Labor Government had been asleep at the wheel, forcing Australian miners to seek international investment.

The Western Australian Government’s announcement that the Browse LNG project in WA would be declared a “State Significant Project” is a welcome acknowledgement of the critical need for more new gas developments in Australia, however a damning indictment of the approvals mess that the Federal Labor Government has created.