Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I appreciate your protection from that vicious attack from the Greens political party by way of interjection. They are trying to put me off my thoughts because they do not like me telling the people of Australia who are hearing this on broadcast that Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's emissions of carbon. Do not worry about five per cent, 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 30 per cent or even 50 per cent of Australia's emissions being reduced—forget that. Let's surmise that we shut down 100 per cent of Australia's emissions. That means that you would stop Australia. You would not have any lights on now. Even if you did that, what impact would that have on the changing climate of the world?

I have often said that I am one of those who believe that the climate is changing because I have read about the time when Australia was covered in ice and when the centre of Australia was a rainforest, so clearly the climate has been changing over many, many years. Are man's emissions of carbon contributing to it? I have heard eminent scientists say yes and similarly qualified scientists say no. I am not in a position to judge that. But what I can judge—and you do not have to very bright to do this, and many would say that is appropriate for the Greens—that 20 per cent of 1.2 per cent is an infinitesimal number and will make absolutely no difference to the changing climate or to the environment of the world whatsoever.

Yet the Greens political party, with their Labor mates, would somehow have you believe that because Australia is only reducing its emissions by five per cent that we are the bad guys. I would like to make the analogy—not a very sensitive one, I might say—that it is much the same with the Syrian refugee situation. If everybody else in the world plays their part then so should Australia. If we are going to reduce emissions we should do so commensurately with every other country in the world. When the countries of the world that are the big emitters get down to the emissions size of Australia, then Australia should be in step with them. But this idea of the Greens political party and the Labor Party that somehow Australia, by cutting its emissions by 20 or 30 per cent, will save the world is just so ludicrous and ridiculous that I find it impossible to believe that supposedly intelligent people can fall for that lie.

I repeat again and again: Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's emissions of carbon. I will say it again: Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's emissions of carbon. That is the sort of thing that most Australians understand, and that is why they got rid of the Labor Party and their Greens allies at the last election. They realised that the Labor-Greens carbon tax was destroying Australian industry, particularly the manufacturing industry. It was destroying Australian jobs and, in fact, exporting Australian jobs overseas. What did the so-called workers' party do about it? They exacerbated the export of those jobs overseas. That is why I always want to continue reminding Australians that the Labor Party do not stand for workers—they stand for the unions, and the unions only represent 12 per cent of Australian workers in the private sector. They are not my figures; they are the figures of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

I hope I am wrong about the National Bank and, if I am, I will come in here and apologise to them. If the National Bank wants to invest in Queensland, it should be investing in coal mines. There is another biofuels fibre-to-plastics proposal up in Ingham, near where I live in North Queensland, that the National Bank could well invest in. I would hope that if it is the bank that it used to be—and that I hope it still is—it will be investing in those sorts of new technologies but at the same time it will be investing in the tried and proven technologies that provide us the light and the comforts we all enjoy and that provide for poorer people around the world to enjoy some of the advantages of life which Australians take for granted. Let's continue to operate our mines but I hope the banks are not part of this fraud by the Australian Greens political party that cause them to change their investment policies because of the false propaganda of the Greens political party.

That has taken me just a little bit away from the Banking Laws Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill. Suffice it to say, I support this bill wholeheartedly and I repeat that it is simply explained as the bill that will stop the Labor-Green governments of the future—heaven forbid that should ever be any—from stealing people's money again, as they did during the time of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government.