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

Senator George Campbell just let the cat out of the bag. He said that the Labor Party this Saturday are going to start putting together a plan to address global warming. It will be the very first plan they have got. Thank you, Senator George Campbell, for admitting what we on this side—and I think most other Australians—know: the Labor Party has never had a plan or a policy on global warming or, for that matter, on anything else. I know that Senator George Campbell read all of his speech. I do advise him that he does not have to take and accept the claptrap that someone writes for him. He really should think about the issues himself.

To suggest that this government has not had 10 years of action in relation to climate change and greenhouse gas emission simply belies the facts. Senator George Campbell can fool himself all he likes but anyone having a simple look at the facts will see that in 1996 when this government came to power we set up the Greenhouse Office. That was an initiative to make sure that these things were addressed—not next Saturday, as the Labor Party are going to do, according to Senator George Campbell, when for the very first time they are going to start putting together a plan. Unlike the Labor Party, we did this 11 years ago and in the ensuing 11 years there have been any number of initiatives by the Howard government on climate change and low-emission technology.

I say this to Senator George Campbell and all members of the Labor Party over there: at the last election I stood shoulder to shoulder with the ‘F’ part of the CFMEU to save the Tasmanian forests. At that time the Labor Party was totally opposed to forest workers’ jobs and did everything possible to join up with the crazy Greens initiatives to destroy the forestry industry in Australia. I am pleased to say that some of the more sensible people—the one or two of them that there are—in the Labor Party have had the good sense to reverse that. But I stood shoulder to shoulder with the CFMEU to fight Labor to make sure that forestry workers saved their jobs at the last election.

And I can give you this commitment, Mr Deputy President: I will stand shoulder to shoulder with the CFMEU—the ‘M’ part of the CFMEU this time—to save the jobs of workers in my state of Queensland in Bowen Basin coalfields. Following the crazy Greens initiatives that we have had from Senator Brown, Labor is lukewarm to the clean coal low-emission technology development that the Howard government has introduced. I know that Mr Rudd is on again, off again about that. It depends who he is talking to. If he is talking to the miners, he is going to adopt the Howard government’s clean coal technology initiatives, but when he is talking to the latte set, which have so much influence in the Labor Party these days, then he goes the other way. But there is no doubting Mr Howard’s commitment and there is no doubting my commitment. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the mining unions to ensure that their jobs are saved.

Our support is not only for their jobs but for the economy of Queensland. Coalmining makes an enormous contribution to the Queensland economy. It makes the Queensland economy the best in Australia—and I know that some of my Western Australians colleagues might challenge that. Certainly it does fabulous things with the export dollars it brings in. It also does sensational things for local development with the miners earning very big wages, more than $200,000 a year many of them—and good luck to them; they deserve it; they work for it. They reinvest the money in local areas, developing local economies and building for the lifestyle of Queensland. Our government will not be fooled by the ridiculous Kyoto proposals of the Labor Party. We will not be fooled by their antidevelopment proposals. We will get good clean technology initiatives up and we will look after the environment and workers jobs as well. (Time expired)