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

The member interjects. In his speech the minister waxed lyrical about the future possibilities of brown coal if the research and development related to CCS proved successful. He also announced the extension to the time frames of the HRL project. So while the member for Melbourne and the member for Wills come in here and attack the use of cheap and reliable base load energy from fossil fuels, the minister responsible is getting on with the job of actually securing Victoria's future energy needs and recognises the potential to keep using brown coal into the future.

I fear that it is only when the lights go out and the last manufacturing job is exported offshore that Australians will begin to understand how dangerous the Greens' policies are for the future of our nation. I oppose this motion and I condemn the Australian Greens for their hypocrisy and I call on members opposite to stand up for Latrobe Valley power station workers and actually do the right thing and abandon the carbon tax.

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