Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Make all the points you want about how you need steel for electric cars, but maybe you don't understand the difference between thermal and metallurgical coal. This amendment applies to thermal coal. So don't come in here and pretend all of a sudden that you can oppose this on the basis that you care about the Pacific islanders, because the Pacific islanders don't want us to proceed with coal. Don't come in here and pretend this is about jobs in Queensland, because there's near on 70,000 jobs that are threatened by the decline in the reef. And don't come in here and pretend that this is fanciful, because we know that this government, under a veil of secrecy, has changed ethics mandates in the past. And we know that you are busting a gut to write cheques for coal companies before the election. This amendment will stop that.

So I commend this amendment to the House, and I hope that it has the support of enough members of the crossbench, and, indeed, of the opposition, when this comes up, because the rest of your bill will be allowed to sail through but this will stop the government from writing those cheques that we know it wants to write before the federal election.

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