John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's good to get a bite. I will tell you why Senator Keneally is on her feet. She used to drive the bus in New South Wales and now she is here sitting down the back of the bus. But she won't be at the back of the bus for long. She'll want to be up the front of the bus. In fact, she'll want to be driving the bus. I've said to Senator Wong, 'Don't worry about us on this side of the chamber; get a mirror mounted in front of the chamber and look at those behind you, because that's where your enemies are.' And the one that used to drive the bus in New South Wales is the one who wants to drive the bus here again, for sure—and, of course, the same old, same old will happen. But for Labor to talk about electricity prices just amazes me.

Senator Keneally interjecting—

Hello; the bus driver, Senator Keneally, is trying to take a point of order over there. We're talking about electricity prices. Here we are in a country wallowing in energy. Those over there simply despise coal. I can't believe that the CFMEU—the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union—donate money to the Labor Party and the Greens. What do the Greens hate? They hate construction; they hate forestry; they certainly have it in for the miners; and, when it comes to energy, all the Greens want is renewables—and don't go near coal, mining and iron ore. I can't believe the CFMEU donates so much money to those opposite. The Labor Party run down the Green road just to keep their Green competitors off-road and protect their political grass. It's just amazing that that union donates money to those people.

The only friends that union has in here when it comes to mining are the coalition, who support mining and coal-fired generation. It's amazing how many plants have been built all around the world. There are 10 new plants in Japan and there are many, many more in China. But I'm sure we'll get on to that with the MPI today moved by the Greens about how we are going to prevent droughts. The Greens are going to prevent droughts by reducing our CO2 levels. Apparently if we have all renewable energy, we won't have a drought in the future. What a fallacy! It's quite amazing that those opposite want to go down the road of expensive electricity. All they talk about is expensive electricity, which will drive our industries overseas—shut the cement industry down here and move it over to China, where they put out more emissions.

Those opposite are very much against the Adani coalmine. Well, Mr Shorten is against it when he's in Melbourne but he supports it when he's in Queensland. So it just depends which part of Australia he is in. Instead of these new coal-fired generators that are being constructed around the world, with hundreds of units of them in places like China, India, Japan, Indonesia, India and even Vietnam—with 34 units being constructed there—those opposite don't want them to burn the more efficient, Australian coal with fewer emissions and less environmental damage, they want to shut ours down and not open new coalmines and burn less efficient coal, brown coal, produced by countries, such as Indonesia and China, that have the worst effect on the whole globe.

We're not living under a tent. When are people going to learn that we're not living under a tent in Australia? As Dr Finkel said, no matter what we do, we're going to make little or no change to the environment; just put the costs up. This NEG is about stability and bringing electricity costs down. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.