Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is very sad to see a Prime Minister leading a chaotic, divided and dysfunctional government, as has been shown quite clearly by the fact that she complained to her party caucus about leaking, only to have that leaked. This is just unbelievable. We certainly did not have that during the Howard government's times.

Certainly the coalition stands ready to provide strong and stable government. The coalition will be the strong alternative government that Australia needs after this period of broken promises and incompetence. Australians have been let down by the current government for too long, and it is now up to the coalition to restore hope and confidence in government. So today I will be talking about the coalition's positive plan for a cleaner environment.

We are committed to addressing climate change and reducing emissions by five per cent by 2020. Our target can be achieved by positive direct action and providing incentives, rather than hurting Australian families and our economy with a damaging carbon tax. The carbon tax will be scrapped and replaced with our Direct Action Plan. This includes cleaning up Australia's dirtiest power stations; investing in soil carbon to replenish the land; providing direct incentives for business and industry to reduce their emissions; planting an additional 20 million urban trees; easing the cost-of-living pressures on low-income families by providing support for one million solar roofs; and investing in solar and other renewable energy.

Then there is the Green Army initiative, which will deliver real benefits to local communities across Australia and in my electorate of Barker. The 15,000-strong Green Army will be engaged in conservation projects—things like mangrove planting, riverbed and creek revegetation, construction of boardwalks and walking tracks to protect local wildlife, and the revegetation and regeneration of local parks. In addition to the Green Army, a coalition government will return Landcare to the centre of our community environment programs. This is about cutting red tape and returning more of the funding directly to those grassroots community groups so they can actually get on with their work.

The coalition will also offer state and territory government the ability to act as a one-stop shop for environmental approvals. This would include the creation of a single approvals process for all environmental approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act—an act of the Howard government—via the state system, as part of long-term agreements with each state and territory.

Our clean water policy includes a commitment to a sustainable outcome for the Murray-Darling Basin and delivering on the 10-point plan for the Murray-Darling announced by the former coalition government in January 2007. The coalition will not support a bad plan for the Murray-Darling. We have a positive plan to maintain jobs in basin communities, keep the price of fresh food down and restore our environment.

Our alternative water policy also includes investing in new and upgraded dams. Australia has been let down by a failure to plan for Australia's long-term water needs. State Labor governments have made poor investment decisions, deciding to pour billions of dollars into desalination plants which have contributed to the 60 per cent rise in water prices since Labor came to power.

There is a long list of Labor's climate change bungles. There is the carbon tax broken promise; the disastrous pink batt Home Insulation Program, with four deaths and hundreds of homes catching fire; Green Loans; the citizens' assembly broken promise; the scrapped Solar Homes and Communities Plan; the Solar Flagships program botched tender process; cash for clunkers; the Green Car Innovation Fund; the scrapped low-emission plan for renters; the scrapped solar hot water rebate; clean technology grants that do not add up; the Connecting Renewables initiative, a failure; the squandered renewable energy fund; the tens of millions of dollars wasted on global carbon capture; the scrapped green buildings tax breaks; phantom credits; carbon tax advertising, and Green Star, which left— (Time expired)

See this speech in context