Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Too little and too late has become the norm, unfortunately, for this prime minister and the government he leads. It's becoming a familiar pattern now. Say one thing to the Australian people before the election and then smash them with something very different thereafter. The reality is that the failures of this government on the environment are also causing an economic calamity in South Australia today, and I fear that the same is in store for my electorate of Forrest. This was a bloke who promised so much—to show up and be accountable. But, like every other promise made by this prime minister, it lies broken in a sea of deceit. This is what the then leader of the opposition had to say in 2022:

Will I be perfect? No, but I'll tell you what I'll be doing is this: if I ever do make a mistake, I'll put my hand up. I'll own it. I'll take responsibility, and I'll set about fixing it.

Well, eighteen months after scientists raised the alarm in South Australia, where is the government? This is a government which wouldn't even meet them at the time. This is a government from which we are still waiting for material action, because the little jolly down to South Australia a couple of weeks ago doesn't cut it with the locals. While this environmental disaster in South Australia has been ignored, I wonder whether we would have seen a very different outcome if it was in fact unfolding in front of the cliffs at Copacabana. Indeed, we might then have seen this prime minister come good, put his hand up, own it, take responsibility and set about fixing it.

I think all Australians expect their government to take the environment seriously. I think all Australians value the environment that we enjoy in Australia, across this broad continent, and they expect the government to steward it. And yet today, as we've heard from the members for Moncrieff, Mallee and Nicholls, this Albanese government is nowhere when the people of South Australia need help.

Local industry leaders from South Australia, like oyster farmer Steve Bowley and Port Wakefield fisher Bart Butson that the member for Grey has given voice to in this place, have spoken openly about the pain their communities are feeling, with disappearing stocks and months-long fishing shutdowns, and there is no end or certainty in sight. Whether it's the drought, the cost of living or, indeed, this crisis in South Australia, Labor is slow to act and quick to spin, with lots to say about those on this side of the House but very little in terms of a plan for the people on the ground.

On the environment and the economy, Labor always think that they know better, riding roughshod over regional Australians—in South Australia as well as in my electorate of Forrest. With the Minister for Climate Change and Energy having a lot to say about his plans for this country and his joy in travelling around to engage with local people and sell the story, we are yet to see him front the people of Forrest and explain why their genuine environmental and economic concerns over the Geographe Bay wind farm should be ignored. I was sent to this place to represent a community that was gravely concerned about being steamrolled by this government, a community who value the pristine environment of Geographe Bay, which is a whale migration superhighway, home to migratory seabirds like albatross and also home to two Ramsar protected wetlands on its shore. The Albanese government knows that offshore wind is three times the cost of onshore wind. And how do we know that? Because even the CSIRO admitted that in their GenCost report—one fact which couldn't be papered over in that same report.

It is bad enough that they are ignoring local environmental concerns, but setting my community up for this sort of economic failure as well as an ecological failure is just typical of a government and a prime minister that, with too little and too late, have badly failed the people of South Australia and are on track to fail my people in the south-west corner of Western Australia. We don't need higher power prices. We don't need the environmental catastrophe of a wind farm in Geographe Bay. For that, this government should be ashamed.

See this speech in context