Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Large swathes of New South Wales and Queensland are burning as we are having this debate. People have died, communities have been devastated and ecosystems have been destroyed. The thoughts of the Greens and, I know, the thoughts of everyone in this place go out to those affected and to those who are so bravely responding to these fires. Yet our Prime Minister refuses to acknowledge the link between these fires and climate change—the direct link that climate scientists have been warning about for many decades. And, because of the science, we know that these very fires are more devastating than they otherwise would have been, and we also know that we are going to face fires like this more often than we otherwise would have faced them.

Those of us who stand up in this place to make those points, to speak about the climate science—to point out the direct link between the way we have polluted our atmosphere with carbon and carbon-equivalent gases, and the frequency and increased ferocity of fires like these—get shouted down. We get shouted down, firstly, as we've just heard in this debate, with this: 'Oh, it's too soon. Thoughts and prayers and moral support are enough for now. This is not the time to be talking about climate.' Well, you know what? It's not too soon; it's too late. And now is absolutely an appropriate time to be talking about the link between climate change and fires. To extend the argument out that Senator Watt has made and others have made in this place, it is like saying you can't talk about how to fix the health system while there are sick people in hospitals. It is a logical absurdity to say we shouldn't talk about climate change while these fires are burning. Now is the time and there is never a better time to talk about climate.

We're also shouted down and told not to politicise the fires. Let me assure you: climate politics is alive and well as we stand here today. The coal and oil corporations that bought policy outcomes from people like Senator Canavan, his mates over on the LNP side and those who sit on the ALP benches have not stopped their political efforts. We've got Premier Berejiklian's government as we speak trying to move legislation to make it easier for coal companies to pollute our environment. In this place today, the LNP and the ALP have colluded to ram through pro-coal legislation in this Senate while Australia is burning. Labor MP Mr Fitzgibbon and Liberal MP Craig Kelly earlier today sent out an invitation for Christmas drinks at Parliament House that are sponsored by who? Yes, right, the fossil fuel sector in this place. Let me abundantly clear: you cannot adequately respond to a climate emergency while you are aiding and abetting the fossil fuel sector and the native forest logging sector in this country. It is a logical absurdity to suggest that you can.

Just last week, our Prime Minister stood up at a lunch of the coalmining industry and gleefully threatened more punishments against those of us who are trying to improve our environment by boycotting the coal sector. I've got a question for our Prime Minister: When he goes to front the people in New South Wales and Queensland, is he going to take his much loved lump of coal with him? Is he going to wave that lump of coal around and try and convince them that they have got nothing to fear? Is he going to do that? I think not. I think he won't front up and admit that his fossil fuel donors will not allow him to adequately respond to the climate emergency, as 23 former fire chiefs and emergency services leaders have asked him to do. (Time expired)