Senate debates

Wednesday, 7 September 2022

Bills

Climate Change Bill 2022, Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022; Second Reading

9:47 am

Photo of Matthew CanavanMatthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Climate Change Bill 2022 is totally out of step with the rest of the world. It will do nothing to help the global environment. It will only increase living-cost pressures for Australians. It will cost us jobs in this country and it will continue the total scam that is carbon trading around the world.

I want to start today with a conversation that I had recently with a mayor in western Queensland, the Mayor of the Paroo Shire, which surrounds the great country town of Cunnamulla in western Queensland. At the moment, thanks to the scam that is carbon trading, 40 per cent of properties in the Paroo Shire have been destocked—cattle taken off the land—for the purposes of creating this ridiculous paper of carbon credits. It does nothing for the planet. The farmers are happy. They make money. The investment banks come up from Sydney and buy the properties. The farmers can go and retire on the coast if they like. They get paid. It's the tyre mechanics, the cafe owners and the hotel owners in towns like Cunnamulla that pay the bill, because, when you get rid of all the cattle around Cunnamulla—Cunnamulla is only a small town—there are no fencing contractors coming to town anymore, there are no stock camps coming in at the end of their muster to have a drink, and all of that business is lost from Cunnamulla.

What happens with this? What do we do? What do we get from destocking 40 per cent of the properties in Cunnamulla? The mayor was telling me that you go down a road there, and there are 12 pastoral properties on this road—big properties, big road—and nine of them are totally destocked. There are just three of the 12 now with cattle on them. This is the front line of the climate battle that doesn't get reported on down here. The victims of this are the small country businesses that are told, 'Your way of life, your lifestyle, is no more'—and it doesn't do anything for the environment. Do you know what happens to these properties when the cattle go? Weeds come in, pests come in, pigs come in. Come and have a look sometime. It's a total environmental disaster, because there's no-one left to manage it. These investment banks in Sydney don't come and manage the property. They don't come and take out the pigs. They don't come and manage the weeds. You know what they're doing? They're collecting their cheques on the carbon credits. They're clipping that bill and making a lot of money, a lot of bonuses, off this scam that is carbon credits.

You've always got to look at any of this sort of legislation. When things go through this place and we debate these things, you've got to ask the question—the Latin phrase is 'cui bono': who benefits? Who benefits from this legislation? It's not going to be the environment. It's not going to be the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is doing fine; coral is at a record level. It is going to be the bankers who run these scams of carbon credits and carbon-trading schemes. That's why the banks all support it. That's why the banks love this. They're all in favour of all this because it's another line of business to get them more bonuses, to buy that other house, to extend the butler's pantry in the kitchen. That's why they want this legislation. It doesn't do anything for the environment.

We're totally out of step with the world now. I hear these conversations here in this building about how the world is waiting with bated breath for our parliament to put in this 43 per cent target ahead of the European winter. Is anyone watching the news? Has anyone in this place turned on a TV? The Greens party in Germany has reopened 21 coal-fired power stations this year—21. The Greens party in Germany are in government with the Socialist party and, I think, with a libertarian-type party. And the energy minister there, Mr Habeck—he's a Greens party politician—has been responsible for reopening 21 coal-fired power stations. We've only got 19 in Australia, but they're opening more coal-fired power stations in Germany than we have.

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