Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

A number of speakers here are representing or supporting the teals. I don't know what we spent in the last campaign, but I would be very surprised if it was over $200,000. One of the teal members got $1.8 million, another one got $1.75 million dollars, another got $1.6 million, another got $1.3 million, and another got $1.9 million—and now they get up and talk about donations!

I represent families that are struggling to pay off mortgages and are working in the coalmines. Twenty thousand families work directly in the coalmines in Queensland. These people want to close the coalmines down so that they have no income and no jobs. If you live in Moranbah, where the hell are you going to get a job if the coalmines are closed down? Intelligent people, starting with the minister herself, Plibersek, know that technology has moved on. I'm sorry, ladies! Technology is way past you. Intelligent people in the world know that you have algae ponds which absorb CO2. I'm not crying about saving the planet. I have made my contribution, of course, and I'm still making my contribution, but I don't cry at night about it, and it's not my policy. Surely, you should know—as the minister, Tanya Plibersek, knows—the names of the algae that you use. I am told that, in Israel, hardly any CO2 is going into the atmosphere at all because of algae ponds, so don't tell us we've got to do this. I'm sorry: you're 10 years behind the game. The game has already moved on.

That little piece of coal contains an immense amount of energy. There's nothing really much outside of atomic power that contains that much energy. Alright, it's been creating a problem. I would agree totally with the teals that there is a rising problem. I don't share their view on climate change. It may or may not be happening, but I most certainly know what's going to happen in the oceans—

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