Mr KURRUPUWU - 2015-11-17
Can you outline what benefit the North East Gas Interconnector will deliver for the Territory and Australia?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, this gas pipeline will be historic. I cannot cast my mind back to a time in the history of Australia, or my short time on this country, when another piece of infrastructure was built across borders in Australia. I cannot think of a road, bridge or pipeline that was built inter-jurisdictionally. It is very hard to do.
The history of our nation talks about different gauges of rail line as it passes around Australia and how much of a challenge that is. This will present a challenge for us in modelling the rail line between Tennant Creek and Mount Isa. To build a piece of infrastructure across borders is a challenge. We have worked very closely with the Queensland, South Australian and federal governments in working through this process to ensure we get our regulatory processes right, that we work on land access and work to support business and so forth.
One of the benefits for Mount Isa, where we look beyond jurisdictions, is that Incitec Pivot will be the first receiver of gas through the pipeline. It will now be able to work in partnership to develop the fertiliser Incitec Pivot makes. If it was not for this gas, Incitec Pivot could potentially close down. It is in the middle of building an $800m facility in Louisiana because it could not find gas in Australia, so there are jobs being exported overseas. This keeps jobs in Australia.
My desire - and this is part of the overall architecture in what we want to do - is to get processing facilities in Tennant Creek, which will mean more jobs there. We would export from the Northern Territory what we could generally classify as NT spec gas. It does not need Australia spec gas. It has to run through a processing plant to get to Australia spec gas. That was one of the benefits of the Jemena bid, without going into further detail. There is an opportunity to turn it into Australia spec gas at Tennant Creek. That will mean a plant, which will mean more jobs.
When you make it spec gas, you strip certain elements out of the gas. Without going into the details, if we have an opportunity of stripping out ethane, methane and other wets, we can use those products to make jobs in the Northern Territory, and make plastics like this folder here. That is where many of the jobs are in the petrochemical industry and where the downstream jobs are. There are jobs in building the pipeline, but not many in running the pipeline. It is the product you get out of the gas to go downstream to create the jobs. It is all about jobs for Territorians and jobs for Tennant Creek, particularly in the construction.
I am working on jobs for Tennant Creek in the processing and downstream opportunities. There will also be opportunities for jobs in Darwin, where we do processing and further refining in the plastics industry. It is great for the Northern Territory and it will underpin us going forward in a diversified industry for many years to come.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, this gas pipeline will be historic. I cannot cast my mind back to a time in the history of Australia, or my short time on this country, when another piece of infrastructure was built across borders in Australia. I cannot think of a road, bridge or pipeline that was built inter-jurisdictionally. It is very hard to do.
The history of our nation talks about different gauges of rail line as it passes around Australia and how much of a challenge that is. This will present a challenge for us in modelling the rail line between Tennant Creek and Mount Isa. To build a piece of infrastructure across borders is a challenge. We have worked very closely with the Queensland, South Australian and federal governments in working through this process to ensure we get our regulatory processes right, that we work on land access and work to support business and so forth.
One of the benefits for Mount Isa, where we look beyond jurisdictions, is that Incitec Pivot will be the first receiver of gas through the pipeline. It will now be able to work in partnership to develop the fertiliser Incitec Pivot makes. If it was not for this gas, Incitec Pivot could potentially close down. It is in the middle of building an $800m facility in Louisiana because it could not find gas in Australia, so there are jobs being exported overseas. This keeps jobs in Australia.
My desire - and this is part of the overall architecture in what we want to do - is to get processing facilities in Tennant Creek, which will mean more jobs there. We would export from the Northern Territory what we could generally classify as NT spec gas. It does not need Australia spec gas. It has to run through a processing plant to get to Australia spec gas. That was one of the benefits of the Jemena bid, without going into further detail. There is an opportunity to turn it into Australia spec gas at Tennant Creek. That will mean a plant, which will mean more jobs.
When you make it spec gas, you strip certain elements out of the gas. Without going into the details, if we have an opportunity of stripping out ethane, methane and other wets, we can use those products to make jobs in the Northern Territory, and make plastics like this folder here. That is where many of the jobs are in the petrochemical industry and where the downstream jobs are. There are jobs in building the pipeline, but not many in running the pipeline. It is the product you get out of the gas to go downstream to create the jobs. It is all about jobs for Territorians and jobs for Tennant Creek, particularly in the construction.
I am working on jobs for Tennant Creek in the processing and downstream opportunities. There will also be opportunities for jobs in Darwin, where we do processing and further refining in the plastics industry. It is great for the Northern Territory and it will underpin us going forward in a diversified industry for many years to come.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016