Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Nine years, member for Fairfax! Nine years! If only you had been part of a government that had had the opportunity to act on these things! You clearly would've solved all the problems.

It's just extraordinary that we have an opportunity here in Australia, for the first time in almost a decade, for people to come into this parliament and say to those schoolchildren who are up there watching me speak: 'We have your future in our minds. We have your future at the forefront of the decisions that we are making about how we deal with emissions so that when you're our age you can live in an environment that somewhat resembles the environment we got to live in when we were your age.' For the first time in a decade, members in this parliament have an opportunity to come into this place and say to the schoolchildren up there and in our electorates: 'We have your employment future at the forefront of our minds. We are thinking about how to give you the opportunity to have well-paid, interesting, secure jobs in a renewable energy industry in Australia which makes us a renewable energy superpower and allows you to work in a way that gives back to the community, as well as supports you and your family.'

Imagine having the opportunity to come in here and talk about these things, talk about the future of these children, and instead coming into this parliament and inventing your own reality, pretending the last nine years—where there were 22 energy policies, none of which were implemented—never actually happened, and giving a speech for 15 minutes that not once mentions the reality of climate change and the impact of emissions on our environment, on our health, on our jobs and on our future. Imagine squandering that opportunity.

I really hope that the last person to do that in this parliament, in this debate, is the member for Fairfax. But I have a sneaky suspicion he might just be at the head of the cavalcade of people that, apparently, did not listen to what the Australian people were telling them on 21 May when they turned up to vote; when they voted for 77 members of this place to be from the Labor Party, which had a comprehensive climate change policy; and when they voted for a crossbench that campaigned for action on climate change and reduced the muppet show to a small group of people on the other side of the chamber.

Maybe you'd sit for at least a moment and think to yourselves, 'Perhaps we're on the wrong side of history here.' Maybe they did and then they thought, 'I know how we'll fix it: we'll bring in nuclear energy'—which blows the mind of anyone who has ever thought about it deeply for any period of time. I came in here wanting to give a really positive speech, but obviously the member for Fairfax ruined that for me.

This is, truly, a moment in history. There aren't that many times in this parliament, if we're all honest, when we're debating legislation and issues that can fundamentally change the course of the future, not just for our communities, not just for our country, but for our contribution to the region and the world. There are not that many opportunities—there were none whatsoever in the last nine years—but this is one of those opportunities.

This is not about ridiculous things like 'green lawfare', and it shouldn't be about politics. You can smirk and be smug all you like, but you are sitting on the wrong side of the chamber, and it looks like you're going to be sitting on the wrong side of history, because this is about the future.

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