Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The cafe latte set in Devonport—all right, Senator Sherry. Senator Sherry, when or if you ever talk to the coalminers in the Bowen Basin, you will not adopt quite the same approach to greenhouse gas emissions, because the miners where I come from, and in an area where I travel regularly, understand that the Labor Party policy on this and in so many other areas would cost them their jobs. Most of them earn far more than anyone in this chamber earns at the present time—and good luck to them. I appreciate and applaud people who get out and do the hard work—at times the dirty work—but share in the rewards, and they certainly do in the Bowen coalfields, Dysart, Moranbah, Emerald, Moura and all those places.

If the Labor policy were introduced without any trade-offs, then the people who the unions are supposed to be representing and supporting would find themselves in very dire straits. I find the Labor Party’s approach to all of this quite illogical and difficult to understand. Perhaps I should not say ‘the Labor Party’; I should say ‘the Labor Party in its federal connotation’, because the Labor Party in Queensland, with Peter Perfect—Premier Pete—understands—