Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

In a press release put out by the Greens, upper house candidate in New South Wales Lee Rhiannon is quoted as saying:

We have also agreed with Labor to establish a preferencing framework for the federal election in New South Wales …

I think the Leader of the Opposition needs to tell the voters not only in New South Wales but across Australia what deal he has done with the Greens in New South Wales and across Australia for the federal election later this year. Is it about closing down the coalmining industry in Australia? Is it about costing thousands of Australian coalminers their jobs? We need to hear from the Leader of the Opposition what deal he has done with the Greens in which they want to, as Bob Brown has said, close down or phase out the coal industry within one term of government.

They cannot walk away from this, because we all remember the preference deal the Australian Labor Party did with the Greens at the last election, which only surfaced in the last week of the campaign. If the then leader, the former member for Werriwa, was going to trash thousands of jobs in the timber industry, and that came to the surface as a result of the preference deal he had done with the Greens, what will be the cost to coalmining jobs across Australia, and particularly in New South Wales, as a result of the preference deal with the Greens done by the Leader of the Opposition?

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