Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Brown, you are the leader of the Greens—for the moment; I understand there is a bit of murmuring on the back bench about the leadership quality in the Greens at the present time. It has been going on for a while. I cannot but think how sexist the Greens are—due to the fact that Senator Brown maintains the leadership position. Senator Brown has been here for a long time—some would say too long—so we have heard this debate before. We have heard all of these discussions before. But Senator Kemp alerted me to the fact that if we had a 60 per cent decrease in emissions, that would lead to an increase in petrol prices of approximately 100 per cent. I find that absolutely amazing. I would even start to doubt you, but you quoted that from ABARE, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics, a very well-qualified and respected organisation that is not prone to making outlandish claims.

I just wonder, as a representative of regional Australia, from North Queensland, what it would mean to our economy if we had a 100 per cent increase in fuel prices. Senator Brown and Senator Milne would not understand. They come from the state of Tasmania, which is a lovely state with lovely people, lovely forests, a lovely timber industry that is sustainably managed, a great fishing industry and a good tourism industry that is working side by side with production sawmills. It is a great little state, but it is a little state. I know that you also come from that lovely state of Tasmania, Mr Acting Deputy President Watson, but it is only a little state. If petrol prices go up 100 per cent, it will have an effect on Tasmania but only a small effect. If you come from a state like Queensland, as I do, with vast distances from town to town and from the sources of production to the ports or the manufacturing areas, the imposition of a 100 per cent increase in the cost of fuel would be catastrophic. And this is what the Greens are proposing.

All of the hundreds of thousands of people who are listening to this debate on the radio should be aware that Senator Brown, Senator Milne and their party want to increase petrol prices by more than 100 per cent, and people should be aware and understand the catastrophic effect that would have on a state like Queensland and on Northern Australia in particular. In addition, I understand that ABARE says that GDP growth would be 10 per cent lower, oil and gas production would fall by 60 per cent, and coal production would be down 32 per cent. I hang around in an area of North Queensland which is near the Bowen coalfields; I live not far from there. The people who work in the coal industry there are all good workers—and for some strange reason they still vote for the Labor Party; I cannot fathom that—and they are making an enormous amount of money. They well deserve it, I might say, but they are making huge wages in their work in the coal industry.

That is an industry that has been nurtured and promoted by the Howard government, and it is an industry that will be an environmental model when our clean coal technology gets going. The miners in the Bowen coalfields area, who make a lot of money, also put a lot of money back into the local economy. They buy houses, they go to the pub, they go on holidays and they buy cars. It is tremendous for the North Queensland economy to have all this money floating around. Senator Brown and his team would have all of that stopped. Can you imagine, on top of the doubling of fuel prices, the catastrophic effect it would have on Queensland if coalmining was to be reduced, as Senator Brown has proposed? If that happens, you can shut down half of Queensland, and the other half would be in a pretty poor state. Mr Acting Deputy President, I wonder if you could guide me: does this debate finish at 6 pm or 6.30 pm?