Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

You are right, Senator Boswell. I do not think any of her Queensland colleagues are prepared to get up and defend this flawed emissions trading scheme, particularly before this Saturday. There is only one of Senator Wong’s Queensland colleagues in the chamber, and I assume Senator Moore might speak, but I bet none of her other Queensland colleagues will, because they do not want a bar of Senator Wong’s emissions trading scheme. You only have to look at the actions of Mr Bidgood, the member for Dawson, which takes in a lot of the Bowen Basin coalfields; Ms Livermore, whose electorate takes in a lot of the Central Queensland coalfields; and Mr Trevor, from Flynn, which also takes in many mining fields. They do not want to talk to the media about this at all. Why not? Because they do not agree with Senator Wong’s emissions trading scheme.

In fact, I have been all around the countryside on Senator Cormann’s committee looking at the emissions trading scheme and I cannot find anyone in support of it, not even the AWU, not even the CFMEU. None of the unions want it because they, like us, have an interest in working families, whom the Australian Labor Party seems to have abandoned when it comes to the emissions trading scheme. And three members of parliament from North Queensland in the ALP have been gagged by this minister and by her party so they will not say anything about a flawed emissions trading scheme that will cost working families in my state of Queensland their jobs.

Where are the Greens on this important issue of saving the jobs of working families? The Greens, of course, are in complete disarray. As I pointed out this morning in my notice of motion, the Greens are preferencing the Labor Party in 12 marginal seats, which could result in the return of Anna Bligh’s Labor government. Anna Bligh has made it quite clear that once she is returned she will be proceeding with the Traveston Crossing Dam. What hypocrisy from Senator Brown—canoeing down the Mary River saying, ‘We are opposed to the Traveston Crossing Dam,’ and then giving preferences to Labor to build that dam.

It is not me saying this, Mr Deputy President; you have only got to look at yesterday’s news reports which show that the Greens political party in Queensland is in complete disarray. In fact the Greens candidate for Gympie, Mr Ken Hutton, returned 15,000 how-to-vote cards prepared by the Brisbane office of the Greens party giving preferences to Labor because he does not want a bar of returning a Labor Party which will build the Traveston Crossing Dam. So here is the hypocrisy of the Greens, joining with their mates in the Labor Party—and they are only the left-wing faction of the Labor Party—destroying all those jobs in the Mary Valley of Queensland and ensuring the construction of that dog of an idea, the Traveston Crossing Dam, which will not help at all.

Where are the Greens when it comes to protecting the jobs of working families up my way in the Bowen Basin coalfields? What about out in Mount Isa? Where is the Labor Party out there protecting jobs? I want to know if Anna Bligh, the Labor Premier of Queensland, has raised a finger to help the working families in Mount Isa, in Collinsville, in Moranbah, in Glenden—in all those Bowen coalfields towns—and in Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone and Emerald. Has Anna Bligh lifted a finger to help those working families or are they just going to roll over to this flawed emissions trading scheme of Minister Penny Wong?

It is a scheme that the federal Labor members in that area do not want to have a bar of. It is a scheme that very few Labor senators from Queensland in this chamber want a bar of. That is why the minister suffers the indignity of having to come in after question time and defend herself in the take note of answers debate. It is because none of her colleagues have any interest in that scheme. They know, like we know, that it is a dog of an idea and will cost workers jobs.