Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot believe we are here bearing witness today to Labor's complete disregard for democracy in this country. Young people like the students in the gallery should mark this date as the date when Labor demonstrated how little regard they give to the Senate's instruction for the minister to appear. There's so little coordination within the government. I'm ashamed and I despair for what this means for government in Australia. As the coalition, we are working hard to hold the government to account on the looming disaster we are seeing for Australians right across this country.

Mostly, though, I want to focus on their completely radical and outrageous climate targets that are shutting down small business, that are seeing households and homes bear a cost of electricity that is crippling them and forcing them to make choices that no Australians ever thought they would have to make, and that is meaning that businesses that provide jobs to those very families are also threatened. This should be our No. 1 cause for concern when we see the new jobs being put on in Australia being government employed jobs but not the jobs that pay the taxes that keep Australians prosperous and able to enjoy the First World lifestyle that we've had. I am really worried about, as have been talked about, the communities in regional Australia, whether they be Indigenous communities, white communities or, as we in regional Australia love, those communities that are Australians working hard to mine the minerals, grow the food and fibre and be the great tourism places. But they are dying under the cost of electricity and energy that we're seeing under Labor's failed policies.

Indeed, the safeguard mechanism, introduced by Labor, is, as we warned, just a big tax on business. It is a big tax on coal and gas companies—the only source of reliable electricity that we have in this country. We risk the lights going out not just in regional Australia but in Sydney and Melbourne because of these rushed policies that have no place in reality. In fact, we are seeing Australia lose jobs overseas. We are seeing us demanufacture, de-industrialise, thanks to Labor's rushed policies that are making Australians poorer.

But today we saw that the minister didn't even have the common courtesy to turn up when directed by parliament, and we should be very afraid of what this means for democracy in this place—more guillotined legislation, more legislation that comes before the Senate and the parliament without having been properly scrutinised. This is a sad day for Australia. This is a fail from Labor, and, worse, it's a fail for all Australians who are struggling.