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

They've done it again. It's hard to believe, but Labor has made another coal project approval. It's the fifth in a year, and it'll run for 50 years. It's dangerous, irresponsible and reckless. It's like getting behind the wheel of a car drunk.

Labor has the power to be better, but the Minister for the Environment and Water, the member for Sydney, has now given five coal project approvals. It's out of control. There are 116 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline, and each one of these projects represents a threat to our national interest, to our cost of living and to our environment.

Before us, we have a summer of potential disaster. What's it going to take for Labor to say, 'No new coal and gas'? How many communities have to go under or up in smoke? Is it about the donations that Labor gets from the coal and gas industry? Is a few thousand dollars in donations worth all the damage that's done from mining and burning coal?

Here's what it's going to take. It going to take people coming together and throwing out politicians who say one thing and do another. Labor is letting us down.