Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Coal and gas are the leading causes of the climate crisis, and Labor is addicted to more coal and gas. Last year, Labor approved five new coal and gas projects. There are 92 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline, and today, at the start of 2024, Labor in Queensland just approved the country's biggest new greenfield coalmine. After the cyclones, fires and floods in Queensland, they're approving new, huge coalmines that will last for ages. Labor are kidding themselves. We can't have a safe future if we keep opening new coal and gas mines. Labor are far more concerned with what the coal and gas corporations want than with what will keep people safe.

The corporations are making billions of dollars in revenue, and many of them aren't even paying a single cent in tax. You have to wonder how they're getting away with it. Well, last week, we discovered how. It was $863,000. That's how much money Labor took from the coal and gas corporations and their lobby groups in their first full year of office alone. Santos, Woodside and the Minerals Council of Australia all coughed up big. What did it get them in return?

Santos donated over $110,000 to Labor last year. Santos also wants to open up the new Barossa gas fields and faces staunch opposition from the local First Nations community and millions of people around the country. Are the donations to Labor the reason why the resources minister announced her decision to change the rules for Santos to fast-track their project and ignore the concerns of the locals? Labor also rammed through the sea dumping bill, so that Santos could dump their emissions in East Timor's waters, and approved 116 new gas wells to be fracked by Santos in Queensland. What a return on Santos's dirty donation to Labor. It was a big return on investment for Santos.

Next on the list is Woodside. They donated $55,600 to Labor. Woodside wants to open up one of the world's most polluting projects, the Burrup Hub, off the coast of the Kimberley. It's an existential climate threat that will release six billion tonnes of emissions and that requires the approval of Labor's environment minister. I bet Woodside reckon that they'll get it. Then there are the lobby groups—the ones who are always crawling over parliament urging Labor to keep backing new coal and gas mines and threatening anyone who doesn't with public campaigns funded by coal and gas. To keep the doors of the ministerial suite open, APIA, the key lobby group, and the Minerals Council both gave Labor $68,000 and $85,000 respectively.

These corporations are driving the climate crisis, but they can't do it without Labor, and they're getting Labor's support. These corporations are driving the extreme heat, the floods and the fires that people are living through right now. But Labor is giving them the go-ahead. Labor's pipeline of over 90 new coal and gas projects will ensure that the heat will be worse, the floods will rise faster and the fires will burn hotter. Labor's policies mean insurance will cost more—if you can get it! More households will have to be rebuilt. More lives will be destroyed. Labor is giving these greedy, dangerous corporations the go-ahead to mine and burn more coal and gas. Labor is not only complicit in the mining and burning of coal, the leading causes of the climate crisis; it's colluding with companies who want to burn down the world for profit.

The Minister for Resources now flies off around the world spruiking our coal and gas—these dangerous products which are currently cooking the ocean, melting the glaciers, killing off endangered species and threatening people's lives. So many former Labor ministers now work for the coal and gas sector, tucking into the gravy train of an industry which we don't need, which doesn't employ as many people as people think, which doesn't pay much tax and which is threatening our environment, our food, our water, our air and our lives. Did you know this, Deputy Speaker? Every formal resource minister in this country of the last 20 years now works for coal and gas corporations or their lobby groups. That's where they went after they left.

This industry doesn't pay enough tax, and some in this industry pay no tax at all. Labor could make this industry pay its fair share of tax and could use it to ensure everyone has mental and dental care covered fully under Medicare. Instead, Labor's tearing up the Beetaloo basin, shipping it offshore and not even getting the tax that could be used to help wipe student debt, ensure that no-one lives in poverty or ensure that everyone has an affordable home.

Labor loves to wax lyrical about national security as much as the coalition, but there's no national security in a climate crisis. Former heads of the Defence Force have been telling us that the No. 1 threat to our national security is the climate crisis because it will spark massive instability in our region and set off a cataclysmic chain that will threaten our very security. And what is the response? Our nation is under threat, and the politicians are in bed with the enemy. The enemies are coal and gas corporations. They are mining and burning our future, and they are getting support from Labor and Liberal.

We are tough in this country; people are tough but people have a limit. How long could you live in a tent or a shipping container while you try to rebuild, nervously listening to the weather forecast to see if there's a rising river or if there are catastrophic fire conditions on the cards? There are thousands of people around the country who are still building back from the fires and floods of years gone by, and more and more people will join them thanks to the new coal and gas mines being opened by Labor.

The first step to fixing a problem is to stop making the problem worse. You can't put the fire out while you're pouring petrol on it. Every new coal and gas project that is approved by this Labor government puts people's lives at risk. It puts their livelihoods at risk, it pushes up insurance premiums and it threatens our precious natural environment. In 2024, as so many people are struggling, literally, to keep their heads above water, as massive climate fuelled disaster after climate fuelled disaster make so much of our country unliveable for so many people and pushes people to the brink, we cannot be opening one more new coal and gas project. These massive projects that Labor is approving could spark off a climate chain reaction, a tipping point, after which it will be impossible to reverse the damage. That is what the scientists fear: that we will pass the climate tipping point and future generations will not be able to unwind the damage they face. That is why what we do now will reverberate for decades to come and will set the course for future generations.

We are in the critical decade. We are in a climate emergency. We are in an era of global boiling according to the UN Secretary-General. In response to that—yes, we need to have a debate about how quickly we're going to cut our emissions in this country, but the first thing we should do is stop making the problem worse. There should be no new coal and gas projects—no more excuses and no more lies, Labor.

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