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

The Greens said very clearly at the election that we owe coal and gas workers in this country a debt of thanks. For many years, coal and gas workers have helped power our country and engage in industries that helped get the country to where it is today. It is not coal and gas workers that anyone should have a problem with; indeed not only do we owe them a debt of thanks but we here in this place have an obligation to coal and gas workers and their communities to ensure they are not the ones asked to bear the brunt of tackling the climate crisis. In many instances, coal and gas workers live in regions that are going to be some of the hardest hit by the climate crisis. Parts of Queensland and parts of Western Australia stand at risk of becoming close to uninhabitable during the course of this century if we don't get the climate crisis under control. That is the clear evidence from the scientists.

It's just that we now know things about coal and gas we didn't know before. We now know coal and gas are products that, when used as intended, cause harm. Coal and gas are the leading causes of the climate crisis. Just as tobacco and asbestos we now say need to be treated as harmful products that cause harm to the community and to individuals when used as intended, so too do we need to say coal and gas are fuelling the climate crisis. Australia has a lot to lose if the climate crisis is not brought under control. According to the previous government's own agency's estimations, farmers are already losing $30,000 a year in income as a result of the climate crisis.

We have people in northern New South Wales who still haven't been able to get back into their homes or have them properly retrofitted or modified since the devastating floods. We have people in inner-city Brisbane who now can't insure their homes because of the effects of the climate crisis, plus we have the growing billions of dollars of damage bills after the extreme weather events: the fires, the floods and, of course, the droughts that have been fuelled by coal and gas. So we owe it to people, to workers and to communities to say, 'We are going to protect you from the effects of the climate crisis by getting off coal and gas as quickly as we possibly can and, at the very minimum, not opening new coal and gas projects.'

That is critical because, according to the scientists, if we're to have any chance of tackling the climate crisis, at a bare minimum, we need to not open a single new coal and gas mine. Then we need to have a managed transition out of coal and gas and onto renewables and storage. If we plan this and accept that these products are now harmful but that it is not the workers or the communities that are not at fault—rather, they need our support—we can make the transition, and do it very quickly, in a way that will ensure prosperity for those communities. That is why, going to the election, the Greens very clearly said, in places like Queensland and in many parts of the country, like here, 'The best job for a coalminer will be another mining job,' because there are critical minerals industries that we can grow.

We also said, 'The communities need support.' Communities need support in attracting new businesses and industries, and government can play a very key role in that. The principle should be that the coal and gas workers should be able to move into another job that pays just as well and not suffer financially by virtue of the need to get out of coal and gas. That should be the guiding principle. It's why the Greens took to the election a wage guarantee for coal workers. In that way, you would have a situation where an authority with local worker representation on it could oversee it and say, 'In this area, where we will be getting out of coal, we are going to attract new industries by giving the new employer a subsidy if they take on a worker from a coalmine.' So, if a worker leaves a coalmine and goes and works in a new industry, they don't lose a cent. They have their wage guaranteed. That would attract new industries to the area because they would know they would be getting assistance as well as getting some incredibly skilled and trained workers.

If you do this, together with substantial government investment in things like publicly owned renewable energy and critical minerals, where the public gets a stake in it—if we're going to be tipping in billions of dollars, we should ensure that there's a return to the public that is doing that—we could make the transition, and make it really clearly, and honour that debt that we owe to coal and gas workers. That is what a proper transition would look like.

We've seen the transition done very, very badly in this country. We've seen industries collapse, with no thought about how to ensure that workers don't lose wages, that they get secure employment and that new government led industry and other industry grows in those communities. That is why we took such a strong position to the election for not only a legislated transition authority but a wage guarantee for workers, plus significant government investment in growing the new industries in those places.

That is, unfortunately, not what we're seeing with this bill. We're seeing an increasing trend from Labor of greenwashing. They are saying that they care about the climate crisis and bringing legislation before this place that they say is tackling the climate crisis but then doing something very different. They are opening up more coal and gas mines. Thirteen new projects have been approved in the life of this government, with more in the pipeline. As a result—look at the emissions data that came out on Friday—pollution is actually up under Labor.

This is what happens when you try to have your foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time. You say you are going to shift to cut pollution but then you actually pour money into things like the Middle Arm project in the Northern Territory. That is a massive gas subsidy. A big new gas factory is going to be built, with Labor asking the public to put their hands in their pockets to pay for it. Then, you look at this legislation that comes forward saying it is going to create a net zero authority.

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