Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I have just listened with great interest to the contribution of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency on the matter of public importance proposed by the member for Flinders. My electorate has a number of lower socioeconomic areas, and I admit I am a fairly simple country fellow, but I picked up on some of the minister’s comments there. Why would you need to compensate people if electricity and petrol prices are not going to go through the roof? Simply by its very design, isn’t the carbon tax’s intention to drive up the cost of living and to try to change people’s behaviour? I can understand that the minister is a bit embarrassed about his government’s position, in particular when it comes to lower income earners.

It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to report to the House today that it is only 127 days until the lunatics take charge of the asylum. That is right—in 127 days, the Greens will have the balance of power in the Senate, and all of their watermelon policies will come rolling through the corridors of this place. Every one of their red-on-the-inside-and-green-on-the-outside policies will be rolled out as the Greens strut their stuff on the national stage. It will not just be this carbon tax: if the Greens have their way, in 127 days we will start paying more for electricity, more for petrol and more for food, and businesses will be hit with extra taxes just to make sure they do not make too much money and actually employ Australians in meaningful jobs.

I raise that point in the context of today’s debate because we are already seeing the impact of the Greens on this Labor government. From the moment the Prime Minister signed her agreement with the Greens leader, Bob Brown, it has been hard to tell who is in charge. Is it Julia Brown or is it Bob Gillard? At first it was a bit hard to tell. How the Prime Minister must regret that photo opportunity in her office. In amongst that nest of grinning Greens, her cover was blown to pieces. The Labor Party is in government, but the Greens are in charge. How else do we explain the backflip on the carbon tax? The Labor Party was saying ‘Absolutely not, no way’ before the election, but now just a few months later it is the only way to go.

People listening at home and in the gallery may be saying: ‘So what? Those Greens seem like a nice bunch—all warm and fuzzy, cuddling up to koalas, strapping themselves to a few gum trees every now and then and maybe saving a few whales. What’s this bloke from Gippsland whingeing about? Why is he so worried about these Greens?’ All I can say is: don’t be fooled—I have seen the Greens at work in my electorate. Don’t be fooled by their empty rhetoric about saving the planet. Don’t be fooled by the happy snaps with koalas and the watermelon style policies of the Greens. Between them, the Greens and Labor are the greatest threat that regional Australia has ever experienced.

The Greens want higher taxes on the mining industry. They want a big new electricity tax, to ban live exports of animals, to ban rodeos, to shut down commercial fishing and to shut down the timber industry. They hate recreational anglers, and they are already talking about a private member’s bill to kick the cattlemen out of the high country. I noticed that the minister agrees with the Greens on that point. You have to ask yourself what is next for the Greens. Will it be pony clubs? Zoos? Horse racing? Where does it stop for the Greens, and where does it stop for the Labor Party? When are they going to cut their ties with the Greens?

I have a suggestion: let the member for Melbourne trial the Greens policies in the next 127 days and see how the people in his electorate go. Let us make a little trial project out of his electorate. If you do not want those nasty coal fired power stations providing energy, good luck with your solar panels in Melbourne in the middle of winter. I am happy for the Greens to eat their mung beans and sit around wearing their hemp underpants, but they should stop telling the rest of Australia how to live their lives. As I have told the House before and have said in my electorate on many occasions, there is a boiling resentment in my community. People have had an absolute gutful of city based Greens and Labor MPs telling them how to live their lives. The Greens have never helped to create a single job in regional Australia, and they are a direct threat to jobs in many of our traditional industries.

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