Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How remarkable that in 2024, on the first day of parliament for the new year, the Liberal Party and National Party facilitated an antirenewable energy rally outside these halls on the lawns of parliament on the same day that a new scientific report tells us we have likely exceeded 1.7 degrees of warming since the pre-industrial age. We've seen a conga line of Liberal and National senators come into this place telling us how much they care about the environment and how much they care about the whales and the seabirds.

I want to get it on record tonight that I understand that for all renewable energy projects we need to have the best possible assessment process we can. It's good to put politicians and decisionmakers under scrutiny. We need to listen to communities. We need to consult. But we also need to transition to renewable energy if we do truly care about the creatures in the ocean and life on this planet.

It's a bit rich to have the Liberal and National senators come in here today and tell us that we don't care about the environment because we're putting offshore wind farms off our coasts. Honestly, it would bring a tear to a glass eye for those of us who have been here through the swamp and desert years of the Liberal and National parties, that wasted lost decade of climate action. For Mr Barnaby Joyce, Senator Matt Canavan or whichever other Liberal and National senators—Senator Cadell, who was in here today, spoke at this rally—to be talking about opposing renewable energy and protecting whales is like going to a peace rally and hearing Vladimir Putin as the lead speaker. It's that cynical.

Let me tell you what happened this summer, for those who don't know, in January 2024. In my home state of Tasmania the federal environment minister and the scientists working on this project have had to take two critically endangered marine species out of their environment and literally put them in tanks in aquariums so they can survive a marine heatwave, perhaps the largest ever recorded. It's a marine heatwave caused by the burning of fossil fuels and directly linked to climate change. When did we ever think that would happen in our lifetime? It happened three weeks ago. They are so desperate that the red handfish survive this summer that they have had to take a quarter of the population and put it in captivity as an insurance against an extinction event in the months to come. For the Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour there's a captive breeding program so we have some chance of the skate surviving another marine heatwave expected on the west coast of Tasmania and pollution from fish farms.

Look around you. Wake up. Open your eyes. It's happening right before you. There are the changes we've seen to coral all around the world. NOAA in the US has had to bring in new categories for heat stress because the previous categories for judging the health of coral reefs weren't adequate to categorise the changes we are seeing in the physical world from the burning of fossil fuels. This is not a conspiracy. This is black and white. It's clear as daylight. To oppose renewable energy projects so you can whip up fear and hysteria and run a culture war and a fear campaign is not only irresponsible; it's bloody insane. It's insane and it's got to stop.

I want to see offshore wind farms closely scrutinised, but I want to see them go ahead because we must transition to renewable energy if we are going to make sure future generations can experience what we have been lucky enough to experience in our lifetime. That's the science. There's no myth to that. There's no conspiracy to that. That is what the science tells us. That is what our eyes, if we would only open them, will tell us. It's got to stop. This year is the year we campaign on real climate action. (Time expired)