Press Conference Brisbane: BG Group Announcement 

TREASURER:

Well, thanks very much Cath [Tanna] it's good to be here with my colleague Martin Ferguson, the Minister for Resources. Can I just say that as Treasurer, but also as a proud Queenslander, this is a tremendously exciting project for Queensland and for Australia.

It will deliver a huge boost to the Queensland economy but also to the Australian economy. It will provide vital support to jobs, to small business, to future investment and if we do that within a framework of environmental protection and the protection of agricultural production it will also bring a very substantial boost to Australian exports.

It will further enhance the reputation of the region as one of the great power houses of the Australian economy.

Now it's hard to get a grip on just how significant this project is, so I want to take you through just a couple of facts so we can understand the size and the significance of the project.
The plant will be half the size of the whole North West Shelf project and that will go in place in four years - the North West Shelf was put in place over 20 years. And it will produce a third of Australia's LNG, and that's just stage one.

So by any measure this is a very significant project for the Australian economy and Cath has gone through the significance of the project, how important it is that we have the proper environmental controls, how important it is to work with the local community.

And I just want to stress that the Federal Government along with the State Government have been working on this project for almost three years. In fact I met the Managing Director of BG in Gladstone I think in March 2008 and had a discussion there at the airport, and I know our Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, has been working full-time on making sure projects like this become a reality.

So this is a very significant milestone for the Australian economy. It's not every day a company can make an announcement that they would invest $15 billion in the future of our country. This would be close to the single biggest investment in a Queensland resource project, most probably the biggest. So that's very significant.

But what I'd like to say is that this is a vote of confidence in the attractiveness of Australia as a place to invest and to do business, and that's very important as well.

But let's go to the core of this - what does this mean for the economy? What does it mean in terms of the average person? Well, there's something like 5000 jobs created directly through the construction of this project, and that's just the direct jobs. That's not the multiplier effects of all the additional jobs that are created in small businesses, all the tradies that are working and so on. So this is a very big job generator for Australia and that's very, very important.

In terms of its overall impact on investment this will increase inward investment by about 10 per cent per year over 2010-11 for every year in the next four years. That's how significant it is. And it's expected to boost Queensland's annual exports by more than 10 per cent. So what we've got here is, by any measure, a real milestone in the history of this state and in the history of the Australian economy.

And I'd like to pay tribute to the company for the way in which they have worked very hard to ensure, as Cath said before, that we do put in place the proper frameworks and that's been the role of Government both state and federally. The environmental protections are important. The protection of our agricultural industries are important and that whole process has been very rigorous. I will leave my remarks there and just ask Martin if he might want to say a word or two.

FERGUSON:

Well firstly Cath, Wayne, ladies and gentlemen. First to say congratulations to all those involved in delivering what is a foundation investment for a new industry in Queensland and a new industry for Australia. Coal seam methane is not new to Australia; it represents 30 per cent of our domestic gas supply on the east coast of Australia. It is a new history for Australia in terms of export opportunities. It is a first. Only now we're going to see a flurry of activity following the leadership of BG from other competitors in terms of actually delivering similar projects.

As Cath and Wayne have said, this is about bringing home the bacon to Queenslanders. It represents real jobs on the ground. It’s good for Gladstone and it’s good for regional Queensland. Only a matter of a couple of months ago I was out at Biloela. I saw an apprenticeship opportunity under construction, funded by the Australian Government, which will be now fitted out and benefit from investments such as this and that means local kids, young men and women actually doing their apprenticeships locally and getting great job opportunities as a result of investment decisions such as this.

And that, when you think about it, was three years ago when Cath and her CEO came to see the Commonwealth Government. To deliver a project with the scale and complexity and the detail such as this in a three year time period, this kind of investment decision is a major achievement for all those involved. Firstly the company, but it also represents the cooperative opportunities of local Government, State and Commonwealth Government actually working together. I actually think the time span to achieve an investment such as this is a tremendous achievement. It is a very strong statement about the intentions of BG Group to be here for the long-term in Australia. It’s a very strong statement about the attractiveness of Australia for investment. We are the winners, its real jobs on the ground and export wealth for Australia. I congratulate those involved and simply say, as of tomorrow we get on with the job of actually building this tremendous opportunity for Australia.