De-Anne Kelly (Dawson, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Hansard source

I would now like to continue with the argument as to why attacking the coal industry is utterly futile. The only thing that that will achieve is exporting Australian jobs from my region. Senator Brown calls it ‘bumps’. People’s future and jobs are more than just bumps. If greenhouse gas emissions were completely closed down in Australia by closing the economy tomorrow, the effect on greenhouse gas emissions worldwide would be 1.4 per cent. That would have absolutely no effect on world greenhouse gas abatement. But the reality is that it would be economic vandalism on a region like mine and on Central Queensland.

I am glad to see the member for Capricornia is going to follow me, because she has a very big stake in this region as well. The futility of it would be that within a short 10 months China would have made up for the growth in emissions alone. Every 10 months China replicates the entire Australian electricity-generating system. Beijing alone puts 1,000 new cars on the streets every week. So China would have made up for our greenhouse gas abatement, but we would have suffered a mortal blow in our region. The way to go forward is to do what the coalition is doing, not to snuggle up to Senator Brown behind the scenes while refusing him and putting him down publicly. What the government is going to do is continue what it is doing now—

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