Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The climate is breaking down around us. We've got ecosystems collapsing around us. We've now got a Labour government in its second term, after it spent its first term in government approving new coal and gas mines hand over fist and leaving us with environment protection laws that were weaker after one term of Labor than they were after 10 years of Liberal government under people like Scott Morrison. That's where we find ourselves now—hurtling towards climate and environmental calamity, with a government that is not only doing nothing like enough to address those major challenges but in fact turbocharging the very problems we are facing under the twin crises of climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse.

Not only are they weakening environment laws but they approved well over two dozen coal and gas projects in the last term, and some of the biggest climate bombs on the books have been approved in this term of government. They could not wait to get started. The Labor Party could not wait to get started approving new coal and gas mines for their corporate donors, their political donors in the fossil fuel sector. They couldn't wait. Not only are they delivering for their corporate mates in the fossil fuel sector but they are keeping secret from Australians the impacts of climate change that are coming down the line in part because Australia under Labor continues to approve new coal and gas mines, continues to clear-fell and burn native forests and continues to allow land clearing, particularly in Queensland, to proceed at record paces.

I am sick and tired of listening to PR spin lectures from Labor apparatchiks who come in here and try and convince the Australian people that Labor is taking climate change seriously. Labor is not taking climate change seriously. Labor's policies are turbocharging climate change and, in fact, Labor's policies are still publicly subsidising the burning of fossil fuels. (Time expired)