Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

JOSH WILSON () (): Wow! At the end of a long year, in the last week of parliament, this motion really is something. It's a waste of time, because it's fundamentally hollow and, frankly, it is silly in the extreme. It is utterly without substance. The basic assertions and assumptions are wrong. The whole thing depends on cooked-up fearmongering and false claims. I genuinely wonder whether the member for Fairfax really believes some of the rhubarb he is trying to peddle here today. In essence, this motion and the embarrassing questions advanced in question time by coalition members last week are designed to whip up some kind of political advantage from misunderstanding and disingenuousness and xenophobia. That is all there is to it, and I reckon that Australians are thoroughly sick of that at the end of what's been quite a long year. I reckon Australians have had a gutful of that kind of dishonest and lazy political game playing.

The essential falsehood in this motion is that the Australian government has signed some kind of blank cheque, and that is wrong. That is a falsehood. That's what the motion says, and it's a lie. It's a lie. The motion says that the Australian government has already made a pledge of a funding scheme, and that is a lie. That is not true. The member said that this is a compensation fund. It is expressly not a compensation fund. That is a lie. This motion demands answers to questions that don't exist. How much has been pledged? No pledges have been made by Australia or by any other country. It is expressly not a compensation fund. But all of this is designed to create a cloud of bulldust that might trigger people into believing that sensible international cooperation in the global effort against climate change is actually a secret plot that seeks to penalise Australia. Sadly, all of this is born of a coalition that was hopeless and desperate in its dying days of government and yet, apparently, remains hopeless and desperate to this very day.

The truth is that the Australian government, along with many of our best and most sensible allies—the US, the UK and the EU—have agreed to a framework for ensuring that developed countries can help provide support to developing countries in dealing with the impact of climate change. That's what this fund is about. It's no different from the way Australia supports climate related measures in our region. It's no different, in essence, from the Green Climate Fund that the coalition government signed up to in 2016. It's the kind of assistance that reflects our character and promotes our national interest, especially with respect to the support we provide for nations that comprise our Pacific friends and neighbours. It's the kind of assistance that you should absolutely provide, even if you're taking the most selfish perspective possible, because it will help ensure resilience and stability and peace and trade and economic self-sufficiency in our region, all of which is to Australia's benefit.

This morning I attended a gathering as part of the Pacific Australian Emerging Leaders Summit. Needless to say, the issue of responding co-operatively to the impacts of climate change and the concept of climate justice was mentioned by everyone who spoke. Minister Conroy's statement that the Australian government will provide an additional $900 million to the Pacific, over four years, in development assistance with a focus on climate change was welcomed by all. Shadow minister McCormack said that he agreed with and endorsed every part of that approach.

In stark contrast to that bipartisan common sense, this motion peddles the idea that supporting climate action in the Pacific somehow penalises Australia. What's almost funny, in amongst all the falsehoods, bad faith and climate denialist dog whistling of this motion, is the suggestion that the coalition is somehow interested in carefully managed budgets and carefully applied taxpayers money. Give me a break. These are the jokers who burned billions of dollars in their awful mismanagement of the French submarine project. These are the jokers who wasted more than $19 billion in JobKeeper payments to companies whose profits rose during the pandemic; $2.6 billion went to companies whose turnover more than doubled in the relevant period. If the particular flavour of your funding waste outrage was in relation to money sent overseas, don't forget that some of the largest recipients of those wasted JobKeeper billions were foreign companies with foreign shareholders who pocketed the lazy, incompetent largess gifted by those opposite. You talk about shrewd operators. You talk about money to give away and cunning plans. Bloody have a good look at yourselves, for God's sake.

While the motion seeks to whip up anger out of misunderstanding and xenophobia and small mindedness, the reality is that after a decade of climate denialism and the clownish ineptitude of those opposite, the Albanese Labor government is returning Australia to its historical position and its historical character and values as a cooperative, supportive, influential middle power. That's who we are and, without question, that is in our national interest.

See this speech in context