Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

What it is worried about, Senator Macdonald, is $26 billion worth of coal exports which go from this country each year and which deliver to the government quite a substantial amount of money. It imagines that, if we change our rules here, somehow there will be a threat to those coal exports. Again, that is wrong because it is going to be about the rules of other countries. I think 60 per cent—I might be wrong; it might be higher than that, Senator Macdonald, but at least 60 per cent—of our coal is exported. But if it is being exported to Japan and China who are changing their rules as they start to comply with emissions constraining measures then our coal is done for anyway. There will not be the market there.

It will not be domestic policies which determine that. It will be what happens to the rest of the world, and that is what we should be interested in because, as I said, great progress is being made elsewhere but we are falling behind because we have a Prime Minister who still has his head in the sand on these issues. He is still a sceptic, still saying drought has nothing to do with greenhouse emissions. It does, it will, it is going to get very serious and I wish the Prime Minister would recognise that. (Time expired)