Senate debates

Wednesday, 26 February 2020

Matters of Public Importance

Climate Change

5:55 pm

Photo of Claire ChandlerClaire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise in the chamber this evening to speak on this motion from the Greens because this government, the Morrison coalition government, is continuing to invest in practical climate action. We have mapped out to the last tonne how we are going to meet and beat our 2030 Paris target. Our $3.5 billion Climate Solutions Package, announced in February 2019, will deliver over 20 million tonnes of additional abatement towards our 2030 target, and technological improvements and other abatement sources will account for the remaining reductions.

Every time I hear the Greens get up on their high horse, lecturing the Australian people about climate, an important question springs to mind immediately: why are the Greens actively campaigning against huge renewable energy projects in Tasmania if they say they take this climate change issue so seriously? A $1.6 billion renewable energy project in north-west Tasmania, the Robbins Island wind farm, is the target of the Greens and the Bob Brown Foundation, who want to stop it in its tracks. On the one hand, they want to lecture the government and the Australian people about acting on climate change but, on the other hand, they are campaigning against an actual plan to add more clean energy to the grid to supplement Tasmania's reliable and emissions-free hydro energy and to create jobs and massive investment in a regional area that needs it.

Why do the Greens oppose this development? It is because Bob Brown said so. You would think they would have learnt a lesson from the last election. Bob Brown thought the way to help Labor win the election and adopt green policies was to drive up to Queensland and lecture Queenslanders on how to manage their resources. And how did that pan out? But, when Bob Brown says his campaign against the Robbins Island wind farm will be the next Franklin Dam, the Greens swing right in behind their former leader. Personally, I suspect Tasmanian Greens would be a bit embarrassed that they have to oppose a major renewable energy development in their own state just because Bob said so. They certainly should be embarrassed, especially when you look at Mr Brown's own words about why he is campaigning against it. Mr Brown said the Robbins Island plan was, visually, a step too far:

Mariners will see this hairbrush of tall towers from 50 kms out to sea and elevated landlubbers will see it, like it or not, from great distances on land. Its eye-catchiness will divert from every coastal scene on the western Bass Strait coastline.

Well, we'd better not create jobs and we'd better not reduce emissions in case it spoils the view, according to Bob Brown and the Greens—won't somebody think of the mariners and the landlubbers! Clearly with the Greens, it is still a case of what Bob says goes. So here with this motion today—and always in this chamber—they lecture us about climate change while the Bob Brown Foundation is out seeking donations to campaign against a renewable energy project in Tasmania.

What this motion today is actually about is running a defence for the Labor Party's ridiculous non-policy announcement last week, where they chased a few headlines about a 2050 emissions reduction target and then they immediately started complaining about how unfair it was that Australians want some detail on what that plan is and what the cost of it is. They can't even tell us what their emissions target is for 10 years time, as the government has done, yet they want Australians to pat them on the back for making a claim that they would achieve something in 30 years time—with not the faintest detail on what they would do, how they would do it and what it would cost.

I suppose it's not surprising that that is the level of policy development in the Labor Party when you consider that the extent of their efforts currently to stand up for energy and resources jobs in Queensland and New South Wales is to just go out and have a nice dinner in Canberra and talk about it. We've heard a lot about the Otis group, but I think they're getting a bit too much credit. What have they actually done to stand up for jobs, other than just have a steak and a nice bottle of red? It looks very convenient in hindsight that a supposedly pro-jobs minority in the Labor Party was stumbled across by the media just before Labor announced their big, uncosted, unplanned attempt to win over Green voters. From where I'm standing, that looks an awful lot like the Labor Party once again trying to have a bob each way.

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