Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) | Hansard source

I rise to oppose this motion, which is yet another Greens stunt. I suppose we are drawing to the end of this parliamentary sitting, and every week of this parliamentary sitting has been characterised by Greens stunts, so why would anything change now as this parliament comes to an end?

Climate change is a real issue. We are feeling it, seeing it and experiencing it every day right now. As we speak, northern New South Wales is flooding again. South-East Queensland has had heavy rainfall. We see heatwaves and bushfires more often and of more intensity. All of the scientists tell us that, unless we take serious action on climate change, the situation will get worse with more natural disasters more frequently and more intensely.

So climate change is a real issue and it is one that the parliament should take seriously and it is one that, as a country, we should take action on. However, the way to deal with it is through a real plan that has been thought through, costed, modelled and which establishes exactly what needs to be done in the most effective, most efficient way. That is the plan that Labor has put forward.

Labor has put forward a comprehensive plan, as opposed to the Greens putting forward a three-line motion. That's the extent of the Greens plans for dealing with the very real challenge that we have around climate change. So, it is only Labor that has a real plan to deal with the challenge of climate change. On the one hand, we have the government which doesn't even believe in climate change if you just scratch below the surface. We have had under this government a lost decade of action on climate change where we've seen temperatures increase, we've seen sea levels rise and we've seen natural disasters become more frequent and more intense with no action, and simply denial from this government about the need to do anything. Finally, when they were dragged kicking and screaming to committing to net zero emissions by 2050, all they had to back it up was a flimsy booklet marketing-man style from the Prime Minister which. It relies on technology that has not even been invented yet as a way of the getting to net zero by 2050.

Their policy is a complete joke. It has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese, and the reason for that is that they don't fundamentally believe that climate change is a real risk. What they do believe is that they are now in danger of losing seats, particularly to Independents in Sydney and Melbourne. That is the only thing that has prompted the government to even come up with a flimsy booklet that relies on technology that has not yet existed. That's the government's position.

On the other side, we have the Greens who argue that we should and can exit the use of coal and gas tomorrow. That's what this motion goes to. They have no plan for the workers who will be affected by that. They have no plan for what that means for the energy grid. They don't recognise that until we do have renewables at scale we will continue to need coal and gas to back up our electricity system. That's just a reality. Unfortunately, the Greens are denying that reality and they have no plan for what happens to workers, the energy grid or people's ongoing need to use electricity. The Greens plan also says nothing about the fact that other countries continue to consume coal and gas, continue to mine it, continue to supply it and continue to use it. Even if we followed the Greens motion, it would do absolutely nothing about the rest of the world's use of coal and gas and in fact we'd probably see dirtier resources being used rather than those produced in Australia.

In contrast to the Greens and the LNP, Labor is the only party that is taking a real plan to deal with climate change to the coming election. Our powering the nation policy, which we launched at the end of last year, will create jobs, cut emissions and power prices. They are the things that we need to do as a country to tackle the economic challenge that we have around our future energy sources, and that is the policy that will deliver real change and real action on climate change, not stunts like this from the Greens party—three-line motions that will do nothing to fix these problems, that won't deliver cheaper power, that won't reduce emissions and certainly won't look after people's jobs.

I'd encourage the Greens to reflect on their behaviour and the way they approach this issue. This is a significant issue. It deserves a well thought-through plan, and that is not what the Greens are offering us.