The sale of Phosphate Plant is major win for North West Queensland workers, industry and the future of Australian fertiliser production.
It represents the culmination of years of relentless campaigning to keep one of Australia's most strategically important industrial assets operating.
This is wonderful news for North West Queensland.
For years we've been bashing the doors down, that if Australia wanted to keep industry alive, governments had to step in and secure a future for assets like Phosphate Hill.
The federal government’s Reserve Resource Policy has been instrumental in helping create the conditions for the sale.
Getting a Reserve Resource Policy in place has been one of the major achievements of my political life. We fought tooth and nail because Australia should never be paying arguably the world’s highest prices for our own gas.
Our competitors in countries like the United States and Russia have access to affordable energy, while Australian manufacturers have been paying more than $16 a unit for gas.
Everything at Phosphate Hill depends on gas. It powers the plant and drives the chemical processes that turn our natural resources into the fertiliser.
Only a year or so ago we were staring down the barrel of losing one of Australia's biggest industrial centres, with the closure of copper and phosphate production threatening thousands of livelihoods across the North West.
This is an enormous relief for the workers, contractors, families and communities who never gave up.
I particularly want to thank the people of North West Queensland who stood together and fought for this outcome. They refused to accept that these jobs should disappear, and today their determination has been rewarded.
Pictured with Robbie Katter and John Canavan and Mat Lynch from Mayfair Corporation today.
