Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are plenty of those. In truth, there is no moral high ground that the Greens sit on. It's quite the reverse with these kinds of debates. I'm actually surprised that the Greens come in here and raise these issues when there is no party in this place—there is no movement in this country right now—that has become more influenced by corporate donations and is following more the nose of big business than the Greens political movement.

The Greens political movement did begin as a genuine attempt to improve the environment in this country—to stop certain projects that they viewed as environmentally damaging. I've often disagreed with the Greens, but I take the point. I respect the fact that their founders, the origins of their party, came from a genuine place of wanting to protect the environment.

Today the Greens political movement is just a shadow of those pioneers, because they simply follow the big green money, the green cash, that comes from the solar and wind industry that is destroying the very environment that the Greens purport to protect. I see it all over this great country of ours and all over my area of the country in Central Queensland where mountain tops are being literally blasted off—areas of pristine environment that have become the biodiverse areas of koala habitats and sugar gliders. These areas are just being blown to smithereens, all in the interests of the corporate green industry that the Greens support and just follow the nose of. These are all largely foreign investors, all big businesses. This is big business. Small businesses don't have enough nitroglycerine to blow up 20 metres of a mountain top. It's big deals, right?