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| Election ‘sleepers’ demand attention |
The Queensland Resources Council has called on both Labor and the Coalition to ‘start talking’ to Queenslanders about the two biggest economic challenges facing the country – the skills shortage and energy security.
Releasing the QRC’s 2010 Federal Election Policy Agenda in Mackay today, Chief Executive Michael Roche said that while the major parties appeared at pains to emphasise which has the lowest immigration intake target, silence prevailed on the resources sector’s skills needs.
The National Resource Sector Employment Taskforce Report Resourcing the Future released this month highlights resource sector skills needs and shortfalls including:
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 | 45,000 construction phase jobs (eg LNG projects) over the next few years | |
61,600 new mining jobs and 3,200 operational jobs in the LNG sector by 2015 | |
shortfalls in key skills areas by 2015 including 36,000 tradespeople, 1700 engineers and 3000 geoscientists. |
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‘With the challenge of filling 45,000 construction jobs in the next few years, the parties are yet to respond to the taskforce’s proposal for Enterprise Migration Agreements to meet short-term spikes in workforce requirements,’ Mr Roche said.
‘Industry needs certainty and clarity on when, where and how the next Australian Government proposes to lead and engage with industry and other stakeholders to deliver a growing workforce, if the anticipated resources supercycle is not to be squandered.’
Mr Roche said Australia’s transition to a low-emissions economy relied on the major parties positioning energy efficiency as a foundation climate change response.
‘A first-class national future will not just happen, particularly without a vibrant growing resources sector, and, the great sleeper issue of this campaign – energy security,’ he said.
‘By 2015, Australia’s annual import bill for liquid fuels is forecast to be around $30 billion a year, equivalent to wiping the entire value of our agricultural exports from the balance of payments ledger.
‘This forecast assumes those liquid fuels will even be accessible in the volumes required by us, and not directed to meet exponential demand growth from markets including China and India.
‘The next federal election in 2013 will be too late to provide policy solutions to this challenge.
‘Failure to rise to this great challenge will not be avoided by the timid politicians of 2010 who turn their back on the fact that Australia’s standard of living is grounded in an energy-dependent economy.’
Mr Roche said against a backdrop of political indifference to energy security was Queensland’s wealth of coal and coal seam gas; and the as yet unrealised potential of coal to liquid and gas to liquid fuel technologies, uranium, oil shale, geothermal and renewable energy resources.
The QRC has also used the election campaign environment to survey member company chief executives on their major concerns.
Higher order issues to emerge from the latest quarterly CEO Sentiment Index survey are:
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| high input costs and skills shortages (and associated workplace relations issues) | |
hard infrastructure availability | |
uncertain and poor regulation. |
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Also apparent are nervousness about the global macro-economy, uncertainty around climate change policy and ongoing challenges to the sector’s social licence to operate.
Media contact: Jim Devine 3295 9560
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