Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's always good to see farmers in Canberra. Good on those farmers who travelled from around the country to exercise their right to protest and have their voices heard in this place. The Greens don't agree with everything they were here protesting on today, especially the ban on live sheep export—that's something we have supported—but we do support farmers in other areas. And, I've got to say, it's good to see the Nationals today standing with farmers. In the 13 years I've been in this place, I've watched them abandon the farming community and join forces with the coalmining industry and the resources industry. That's where their heart has been in the past decade.

What is ironic about that is that the biggest threat facing farmers in this country and indeed all around the world—the same for our supply chains in this country—is climate change. And the Nationals, more than anyone in this place, in the past decade have undermined climate action—in this building, decisions we've made on acting on climate. My state of Tasmania recently had another record flooding event—last week. My mates who have farms lost a significant number of cattle, sheep and trees, and this is happening right around the country. Extreme weather is a function of our changing climate, which is caused by rising emissions, which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuel and the approval of fossil fuel projects, which this government continues to do, and the previous government championed it while they were in this place. And, if we look at Australia's winter, this was the third winter in a row where we've set records—42 degrees only a couple of weeks ago, a new record, and temperatures across the heartland of over 16 degrees Celsius above their long-term averages. We're continuing to see weather records broken everywhere.

And we talk about concerns over water in the Murray-Darling Basin. We talk about biosecurity risks being presented to Tasmanian farmers and to farmers all around this country. And it's climate change. So, how ironic that Senator McKenzie comes in here today to put up a motion talking about how this government is somehow making life worse for farmers and has an agenda to put them out of business, when what is actually putting them out of business are droughts and famine and pestilence and everything that goes with what we know is climate change.

I just wanted to make it really clear today that if you're an Australian farmer you need to be rightly concerned about the government not acting fast enough. And I'm pleased that there are thousands of farmers around this country who have joined Farmers for Climate Action and are calling, in a bipartisan and tripartisan way, for more action on the climate from politicians in this place. That's what I think I would like to hear farmers calling for. That's what we need.