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

For anyone watching this debate here in Parliament House tonight, it's always instructive to look at a subject and break it up into two components: its policy and its politics. Of course, the two things are often interwoven.

The policy around the clean energy rollout around this nation, including critical transmission infrastructure, is an important one to get right, and there's no doubt at all that it's not perfect. There are a number of issues that need to be worked through on this policy, and the concerns of the community should be taken seriously. There needs to be consultation and an understanding that renewable energy projects can also have environmental impacts. So it's really important that we listen to regional Australia and that we get the policy right. We're not there yet, and the Greens will work with the government to make sure we do get there.

Let's look at the politics of this. Don't, anyone, for a second, think that this motion here tonight is not all about politics. Disappointingly from Senator Smith, who I consider to be an intelligent and caring person with the Liberal Party, as I do Senator Bragg and others who care about climate change, this is all about an attack on net zero. This is about the fact that, within the coalition, there are senators—especially in the National Party—who don't believe in climate change, who are flat-out climate deniers. Ever since I've been in this building, which is coming up to 14 years, I have witnessed the conservative side of politics not just undermine climate action but actively rip it up once we got it legislated in this building. And nothing has changed.

This motion here tonight is all about politics. We saw it start three or four weeks ago, when the Institute of Public Affairs—one of the many think tanks associated with the Atlas Network and other networks of international conservative think tanks—put out a report on net zero. Within days, Barnaby Joyce from the other place was out there campaigning against net zero, causing headaches for the coalition. And then we had the Bush Summit, sponsored, presumably, and paid for, by Gina Rinehart and the Murdoch press. Now, Gina Rinehart, a billionaire, who is on record as being a climate sceptic or climate denier, opens these summits with a video, and then the Murdoch press promotes them—they who have spent decades promoting climate disinformation. They are a cancer on climate action. And they've been going out to regional areas and whipping up regional communities into a frenzy.

The fact that our Prime Minister and ag minister supposedly got chased out of town by some tractors the other week is a really sad indictment on us—that we would be taking advantage of these regional communities so the LNP can campaign against climate action and against net zero. Let's help these people. Let's get it right, and cut out the politics. (Time expired)