Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

the Illawarra, celebrating the history of our steel and the things we did in the past. But now we are talking about electricity production, and I am talking about future jobs, future generations and future opportunities in Latrobe Valley. How long have I waited to be able to talk about the future!

When you have a company like HRL and its partners come in and they are prepared to produce a new power station—400 megawatts baseload—it is very important. This is not about renewables. I am supportive of renewables; we even have a power station in Latrobe Valley that runs on rubbish. There will be people out there listening to this address thinking that I am running on rubbish, but I will tell you what: I am not. I am serious.

This is our first opportunity to grow jobs in Latrobe Valley. It is an area that has been really knocked about by change and by privatisation in the past. And now what are we doing? We are grabbing hold of the future. Climate change should not just mean that we are going to be oppressive and against people, that we are going to pull things down and that we are going stop things happening. No, climate change for the whole of the parliament should be an opportunity to project ourselves forward and say, as is outlined in the Sustainable Cities strategy: ‘What opportunities does climate change present to us? Where can we as a nation go into the future while addressing climate change and taking the benefits of how we might change a building or how we might change the way we use water?’

Haven’t I suffered enough and told this House how farmers in Gippsland particularly have been suffering through this terrible, erroneous, gut-wrenching drought that we have had since 1997? It is not new; we have had it since 1997. I am sure I mentioned to the House that we have now had an interim EC declaration, which means it is in the whole of Victoria. Water is a crucial issue. In this argument about climate change, why can’t we develop those things where Australia benefits, like through this new power plant in Latrobe Valley? Surely we will now benefit because of the argument.

You could say, ‘It was going to happen anyway; there would be new power stations,’ and, yes, the power stations that are on line today will roll off. But there is one point I want to make, and that is that the Labor Party has aligned itself with the Greens and preferenced against me in every election campaign that I have been in. This time I am saying to them: if you go down the road of the Greens in Victoria—who want to close down the Hazelwood Power Station and who call it dirty, the worst emitter and all the names under the sun—and align yourself with those Greens who want to close down a power station that supplies 20 per cent of Victoria’s needs, of course the workers are going to vote for people like me who are protecting them. Of course the workers in Latrobe Valley are going to vote for people who put them, their families, their generation and their kids first. If you are going to align yourselves with the Greens, who want to close down the Hazelwood Power Station and put restrictions on all the other power stations, they are not going to vote for you. That is why there is no Labor seat from Pakenham to Cann River and to the border—because we sent the message: we are going to protect you, we are going to protect your families and we are going to protect your jobs. And if you do not do that in Illawarra, if you do not stand up as a local member and say, ‘Listen, I am on your side’—

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