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

I agree with Senator Canavan on one thing, and that is: biosecurity is important. In fact, at the beginning of the last parliament we were in almost a groundhog day situation—as we are today, with the Nats putting up an inquiry into biosecurity. The Greens cooperated with the crossbench and with the government. We looked into foot-and-mouth disease. And then we had a very constructive inquiry into the red imported fire ant program and incursion, as well as into varroa mites. So this is something that the parliament does take very seriously and the Greens take very seriously.

On this particular issue: last week, when this broke, I did speak to the Labor Party and I spoke to the minister and suggested that we immediately organise a briefing for the rural and regional affairs committee, for any senator who would like to attend and have a private question and answer session with the department, and then see how we felt after that. And I understood that that issue is in train now.

Where Senator Canavan and I don't agree is this. I think there is a very important issue facing farmers that the National Party and the Liberal Party don't want to talk about, and that's climate change. There is no bigger threat to the farming community and to our agricultural communities than climate change. The risks from climate change are prolonged and more frequent. There are much more destructive droughts, as we are seeing. There are heat waves, floods, pestilence—I could go on. Our entire food system is at risk from climate change if we don't take climate action.

So, if you want to talk about the risks to farmers, then, yes, biosecurity is a risk, but take climate change seriously. This nonsense around trying to get rid of net zero—I mean, what could be more important to our farming community than all of us reducing our emissions and trying to keep global warming to 1½ to two degrees, when we know that, beyond that, we're going to be facing an increasingly dangerous situation with climate change?

So, while we're talking about biosecurity, on one hand it's a good distraction from Mr Barnaby Joyce's Nationals' push to get rid of net zero in this country, which I can just tell from the vote in the chamber is certainly supported by Senator Canavan and some in the Liberal Party. I mean, seriously? You talk about representing farmers? You talk about steers. You talk about bulls. Well, let's talk about the bullshit in this argument that the National Party have been executing for the last 15 years, since I've been in this place, undermining climate action—undermining what we need to do to face the great challenge of our time, and putting farming communities and agricultural communities at risk. That's what they're doing, and they need to be called out on it. And I'd like to see the farming and peak agricultural bodies come out and call out this bullshit as well, because I've had enough of it and a lot of other Australians have had enough of it.