Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Acting Deputy President—a Daniel come to judgment.

The Maritime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 is a good piece of legislation. As it is a good piece of legislation, we should juxtapose it quite clearly with an appalling piece of legislation, which was the carbon tax. This legislation will actually deal with the problem. That is why it is a superior piece of legislation to pieces of legislation such as the Clean Energy Bill, which started off as something about global warming then became about carbon pollution and then became about clean energy. The government did not have to use weasel words in this bill like they had to in that bill, where it had to keep changing and changing.

The reason that this piece of legislation has an inherent strength to it—and it is essential that we talk to this—is that there has been a competent hand on the tiller, with the political association between the National Party, the Liberal Party and the Labor Party, to bring about a piece of legislation that is not extreme and that everybody knows the effect of. That juxtaposes quite evidently with the Clean Energy Bill, where we have no idea what the effect of it will be. There was absolutely no competency whatsoever shown by the minister to answer serious questions about it. The minister could give flowing recitations on glamorous points but on the technicalities and getting down to the detail was completely and utterly at sea.

After this bill is passed, we will have a period of certainty. The Labor Party, in debate on the other bill, talked about certainty, yet within 48 hours the Australian Greens were back on the front page of the paper saying that they had to take the next step and the next step is the complete removal of fossil fuels from Australia. Where will this end? With the removal of fossil fuels. Every motor car runs on fossil fuels, so we take them off the road. So you say, 'We'll have electric cars.' Electricity is generated predominantly from fossil fuels, so we will take electric cars off the road, too. We go back to ships: every one of them will be off the sea except those coming from overseas. Those from overseas will still be allowed but the Australian ships will be gone. The trains run on diesel so we will take them off the railway lines. There will be nothing left.

It would not matter if this had come from the ramblings of a dissident group, but this came from the Greens partner in the Greens-Labor Party-Independent alliance. I deliberately put them in that order because that is how the show is being run. The leading light of the Greens-Labor Party-Independent alliance—the glee club—who negotiated and brought into our nation this Clean Energy Bill, is now wanting to completely remove from Australia motor cars, trains, ships, recreational pursuits, anything to do with fossil fuels, anything with a synthetic base or an oil base, or plastics, carpets or nylons. We will obviously have to get rid of coal and steel. How would we build this place? What would we build it out of? We cannot use steel. We will build it out of sticks. There will be no more glass because you need energy to make glass.

This is the new world. This is where they live. Quite evidently, the absurdity is that this is where our nation is going. At times, if you did not laugh you would cry. While all this is going on, what is happening overseas? The world is basically falling out of its financial bed. So what are we doing to our nation? We are putting it in the most precarious position, completely redesigning it on a colourless, odourless gas. How absurd is that?