PRIME * MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
INAUGURATION OF NORTH WEST SHELF STAGE 2
PERTH -19 SEPTEMBER 1989
Premier Dowding,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Forty years ago, on the other side of this vast continent,
the Australian people began construction of one of the
largest and most complex engineering projects in the world:
the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Today, we celebrate a milestone in another massive feat of
Australian engineering: the North West Shelf project. It's
called upon the same capacity for vision and the same
reserves of human skill and dedication that characterised
the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and it's created an industry
that will foster Australian jobs and Australian exports into
the twenty-first century.
Australians may perhaps be blase about the magnitude of
resource projects throughout our continent: the huge coal
fields in the eastern States, the vast iron-ore mines in
this State, the oil fields of Bass Strait, our bauxite, gold
and copper mines.
But this one dwarfs them all. The North West Shelf project
is, simply, the largest single resource project in our
history and perhaps the largest anywhere in the world.
Back in the 1960s, not even the most optimistic of people
who saw a small company called Woodside Petroleum acquire a
number of exploration permits in the remote North West of
Western Australia could have imagined the scale of the
discoveries that were to be made, or the magnitude of the
development those discoveries sparked:
375 billion cubic metres of natural gas;
$ 12. billion in investment expenditure;
8000 jobs onsite and offsite;
exports worth up to $ 2 billion a year from 1994. 1% 907
2.
What that barrage of figures tells us, very simply, is this:
for a nation, dependent as Australia is on successful
competition on the world's market places, the North West
Shelf represents a massive contribution to our economic
wellbeing and to the prosperity of future generations of
Aus t ral1i a.
That is why, as Prime Minister, it is my very great pleasure
to congratulate the joint venturers on their tremendous
achievement in bringing this project to fruition; to welcome
the support of the eight Japanese electricity and gas
utilities who will purchase LNG from the North West Shelf;
to pay tribute to the work of the National Liaison Group
which has played a vital consultative role throughout the
duration of this project; and to thank the skill, energy and
commitment of the thousands of workers and staff who have
given their best efforts to this project.
It is of course a matter of regret to me that due to a
variety of circumstances we are not gathered at Karratha
today to see this great project. I certainly look forward
to inspecting it one day.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I've been making the point recently, in discussing
Australia's economic position, that we are undergoing an
investment boom.
Those who are worried about our current account deficit
should come to the North West Shelf and see the way in which
this project dependent as it has been in part on foreign
investment will translate into future export growth.
Across the whole spectrum of industry not just in resource
projects but throughout the manufacturing sector
investment which today is contributing to our current
account deficit is laying the foundations for substantial
export growth in the future.
At the same time it's impressive that such a large
proportion of the work on North West Shelf has in fact been
performed by Australian industry.
Of the more than $ 6 billion already spent, about three
quarters has been spent in Australia.
In other words, Australian industry can compete with the
best of them when it comes to major resource projects like
this; at the same time we have acquired new skills and
capacities which will help make us even better partners in
major resource and engineering projects in the future.
I want to express a special welcome'to our Japanese guests
today.
19908
Exports from the North West Shelf mark the beginning of a
new phase in the already very healthy relationship between
Australia and Japan.
The future is very bright for both of us.
In the mid 1990s, this project will be providing some 15 per
cent of Japan's LNG imports. And Australia can play an even
greater role in supplying energy resources to Japan. Over
the next decade, energy exports to Japan could treble in
real terms to $ 3 billion a year.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The North West Shelf has been completed on budget, and two
months ahead of schedule. That's a great achievement in
itself proof, if more was needed, of the hard work,
cooperative spirit and sheer dedication brought to this
project by thousands of people.
I offer my congratulations to you all and my confident best
wishes for the future of this great project. 1909