Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a brief comment on what a clown show the coalition is today—what a rabble of climate-denying, attention-seeking knuckle draggers some of these blokes are over on that side of the chamber. Not only are they denying the science of climate change; not only are they denying the security advice to Australians about the impact that the climate crisis will have if we don't act, and not only are they denying the very help and support needed by our regional communities, who are already feeling the brunt of the climate crisis. Whether you live in the bush, in the regions, along our coastline, in our suburbs or in our cities, Australians have already felt the brunt of what happens as our climate changes—the extreme weather events, the floods, the fires, the droughts, the cyclones.

In my home state of South Australia, we see our entire coastline devastated because of the marine heatwave that's caused the toxic algal bloom. South Australians want climate action. We can't even swim safely at the beach today, let alone over summer. Rather than take the action we need to drive down the pollution that's driving this crisis, the coalition want to give taxpayer money to the coal industry. The coalition want to dump the commitment to Paris. The coalition want a handbrake on climate action. Well, what is Sussan Ley, the Leader of the Opposition, going to do about it? Is she going to stare down the knuckle draggers, or are they going to get their way?

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was recently doing my shopping in Woolworths. I was pushing my trolley, and looked up and saw a sign that said, proudly, that Woolworths was turning its delivery trucks to electric. I thought: 'That's great. Good on them for doing their bit to get us to net zero and reduce emissions.' But then I looked a little bit closer. Woolworths is not doing this on its own. They've had a helping hand. They got $6 million from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and another $19 million from ARENA. That's $25 million of taxpayer money that is going to a company whose underlying profit last year was $1.7 billion. This is crazy.

Now, I do believe in man made climate change. I definitely believe that we should be reducing emissions. However, why does Woolworths need taxpayer money to do this for their delivery trucks? It may be the case that some Australians are happy to pay higher grocery prices to help fund those electric vehicles, and I'm one of them. However, are you happy to pay with both higher grocery prices and higher taxes? The truth is that this is happening right across the economy. It's happening because Labor is pouring billions of dollars into 'clean energy projects' without telling Australians exactly how much the transition is really going to cost. There's the National Reconstruction Fund, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, ARENA, Rewiring the Nation, the emissions reduction fund, the small-scale renewable energy scheme. That's before we begin on the bureaucracies: the net zero agency, the Climate Change Authority. The list goes on and on.

Australians deserve honesty, and they deserve transparency, because every single dollar a government spends comes from somebody else's pocket. It's the pocket of a family. It's the pocket of a small business. It's the pocket of a worker trying to get ahead. Just be honest, just be real, and just be transparent.