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

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. You have Australia on track to warm by over four degrees, running a scythe through our countryside. This is a death sentence for millions of Australians, including our farmers. Why are you doing everything in your power to make droughts and bushfires and extreme weather worse, ripping apart our country's social fabric? When will you listen to the Greens, the G7 and the International Energy Agency and start phasing out coal and gas? And when will you apologise to farmers for choosing coal over crops and for putting the lives and livelihoods of so many farmers at risk?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You talk of global warming; hell will freeze over before I start listening to the Greens, I tell you what. I'm asked about climate, I'm asked about the social fabric of Australia and I'm asked about farmers. I, my Nationals colleagues, the Liberals, too, will always stand up for jobs. We will always stand up for doing what is right for the nation. We will always stand up for farmers. I'm the son of a generational farming family and how dare you, member for Melbourne, come into this place and dare question my support for farmers. I will always stick up for those primary producers who put food, who put fibre on to the tables and into the wardrobes of people such as the member for Melbourne. Indeed, we will always do what's right for Australian households, factories and farms but we will do it in a practical and sensible way.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton will leave under standing order 94(a).

The member for Moreton then left the chamber.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will do it so that our Australians will not have to pay higher prices. We as coalition members want to make sure that there is a manufacturing base in Australia and, in fact, not just a base but something that we can grow and expand on and that's what we are doing. That's what we're doing through the budget; that's what we are doing with our sensible policies. The member for Melbourne should begin to talk things up in Australia, not run us down, not tell other countries and write to their ambassadors they should deny Australian trade, because that's what he has done. Treasonous I would call that—absolute traitor!

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, the Deputy Prime Minister has to withdraw that. You have to withdraw that.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw that, but he should not write to ambassadors to Australia and urge them to tell their countries not to trade with Australia. That is, I'm sorry, a disgrace. Our emissions are already at record lows; he should be spruiking that to the world stage.

We have the highest take-up rate of rooftop solar per capita. I'm pleased to say, being a regional member, that regional Australia is playing a leading role in making sure that we have lower emissions. But we will always protect those resources industry workers. We will. I know the member for Hunter will. I'm not sure too many others on that—maybe the member for Paterson will too. We all, on this side, support those brave resources workers, those people who get on hi-vis, those people who put on a hard hat with a torch on the front and go down and dig up the resources that make for a better Australia, a more prosperous Australia.

Ambition is important but action and outcomes are what matter, and our track record is something of which all Australians should be proud, when it comes to climate change, when it comes to lowering emissions and when it comes to doing what's right for this nation.