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

It is 670 million tonnes. But, in units, it's somewhere around 2,300, I think. Australia, just to keep these figures in mind, has 73. These are new, coal-fired, emission-generating units. In China alone, they are above 2,000; in Australia, we are under 100. Yet the Greens are saying: 'This is what we've got to do in Australia. We've got to shut business down and export jobs overseas.' They say we've got to do all this so we get a warm, fuzzy feeling and so we can go to the green international conference somewhere around the world and say, 'Oh, look, Australia's cut its emissions by 50 per cent.' The Labor Party, unfortunately, have fallen for that gag as well. It will mean nothing to the changing climate of the world. Don't take my word for it; ask Dr Finkel. It will mean absolutely nothing if we cut it by 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 50 per cent or, according to Dr Finkel, 100 per cent, and yet the Greens would ruin every manufacturing-job-creating exercise in Australia.

That's why they're so opposed to the Adani project. The Adani project won't, in any material way, export carbon, and what it does will have absolutely no impact on the changing climate of the world—absolutely none. But it will create jobs in Queensland—particularly up my way—it will create wealth in Queensland, and it will enable the Queensland government, whoever's in power after Saturday, to almost pay their bills, because of the royalties that will come in from the mining of this clean, abundant, natural coal we have not far from where I live. It's waiting there to be tapped. When it's tapped, it won't impact upon the changing climate of the world and will certainly not have any impact on the Great Barrier Reef. But it will create jobs. It will provide electricity for the starving millions in India—but that doesn't seem to be a concern of the Greens in this particular debate.

I say to the Greens: please explain. I keep asking them. I've been doing this for, I think, 10 years now, when this issue of climate change first came up. I've been asking the Greens to explain to me: if Australia—which emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions—cuts its emissions by 50 per cent, how is that going to change the changing climate of the world? None of them will ever answer me. Why? Because there isn't an answer. Or there is an answer, but Dr Finkel has given it; Dr Finkel said it won't make any difference whatsoever. But it does make a difference to people I know—people up in Townsville who desperately need the jobs and who desperately need the work from Adani. For the small businesses that run off that—the accommodation, the houses and restaurants and all of those people that will benefit from the Adani project—it means big things to them.

So I plead with the Greens: give me an answer. I keep asking them. Senator Roberts, when he was here, used to keep asking them, but they always ignored that. They go on about how horrible we are, how we don't understand, how the latte set in Sydney think we are all troglodytes—yes, thanks to the Greens' propaganda. But give me an answer to that. Australia, I keep repeating, emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. China each year—or week, was it? I forget what it is, but let's say each year—exudes more carbon with its new power stations—not the old ones, the new ones—than Australia has been emitting for years.

I say to the Greens: how come it's okay for China? How come it's okay for India? How come it's okay for Russia? They're all okay, but poor little old Australia emits practically nothing, makes no impact on the changing climate of the world, and yet the Greens political party—and Labor, I'm sorry, have gone along with them—think there are a few votes in it from the ignorant latte set around the leafy suburbs of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Those people might vote for the Greens and the Labor Party. The Labor Party and Greens keep fighting each other for that cohort of votes.

But ask any of the people at the latte place next time you go there, Senator Rice—ask them how is it that Australia's emissions are somehow going to destroy the Great Barrier Reef? I'd ask you to ask that. They'll just open up the Green Left Weekly and read out the propaganda that pops out of the paper, but none of them will understand it. None of them will ever be able to argue the case. Sure, if the rest of the world stop their carbon emissions, so should Australia; I've never challenged that proposition. But, until they do, why does Australia destroy itself and the jobs of its people and its standard of living for a meaningless ideological, warm-feeling approach for the latte set in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane?

This is a debate which I think more and more Australians are starting to understand is just ideological claptrap from the Greens, regrettably being now mirrored by the Labor Party as they fight for Greens votes. (Time expired)