Senate debates

Monday, 1 September 2014

Bills

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014; Second Reading

9:14 pm

Photo of Matthew CanavanMatthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

On the weekend I started reading Paul Kelly's book, the one he put out a couple of weeks ago, Triumph and Demise: The broken promise of a Labor generation. It is a bit of a yarn about the Labor Party. It is a sad book because it tells the story of the death of the modern Labor Party in some ways. It is continuing to be sad here tonight with the Labor Party seemingly opposing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014, given it is something that they actually supported for many years and given that it is something that is meant to be pro-business and pro-development. But, once again, they are turning their backs on that aspect of their tradition and history, on the Hawke-Keating legacy if you like, and facing their future, which seems to be one of being wedded to the Greens. We do not have so much of an Australian Labor Party anymore; we have a Green Labor Party—a GLP has come into existence.

To start with, I just want to quote a little bit from Paul Kelly's book. In the book he tells the story of the COAG Business Advisory Forum. Chapter 30 starts by saying:

The breach of trust between Julia Gillard and Australian business was sealed on 6 December 2012 when at the COAG business advisory forum Gillard pulled the plug on plans to rationalise the dual Commonwealth-state environmental approval project system. The forum chaired by the PM was a high-powered group that comprised the Premier, senior business figures and the peak business bodies. In the prelude to the meeting the Greens had waged a public campaign to kill the reform, and at the penultimate moment Gillard reversed the government's position.

The story is starting to come out here that it was actually the Greens who killed this reform and I think Senator Waters is taking credit for that—

Comments

No comments