Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Climate Change and Water (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked by Senators Boswell, Boyce and Mason today relating to the proposed emissions trading scheme.

It is interesting today, and I thank the President for telling us, that ‘doormats’ is not a term that is of any consequence in here. I want to reflect, in my speech taking note of answers, to the doormats that are now in Queensland—doormats to Labor Party environmental policy. The ETS is the ‘employment termination scheme’ for the many people in Queensland who will lose their jobs because of this political gesture.

Let us talk about who the doormats to this Labor policy will be in Queensland. Let us talk about the people in Gladstone in the aluminium industry, who will be the doormats to Labor’s emissions trading scheme—the employment termination scheme. Let us talk about the people in Gladstone who work in the coal industry, who will become doormats to the Labor Party’s environmental altar. Let us talk about the people in Gladstone involved with electricity generation and all those who rely on it, who will become doormats to the Labor Party’s employment termination scheme. Let’s talk about the people in Mackay in the coal industry, who will become doormats to the Labor Party’s gesture, which is completely without consequence to the environment. It is a political gesture that will put people out of work.

Queensland working families will be out of work for a political gesture. Queensland working families will become doormats to the Labor Party. Their jobs, their income, do not matter, as long as the Labor Party can have the credentials to waffle on at some international conference, as long as the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, can hold up and wave a flag about his magnanimous solo crusade.

Let us talk about the people of Mount Isa in the refining business, who will become doormats to the Labor Party’s emissions trading scheme. Apparently the fact that they live in the privations of western Queensland is of no consequence—they will be offered up at the Labor Party’s environmental altar. Let us talk about the people at Cloncurry who will become doormats because of the effect the Labor Party’s emissions trading scheme will have on the grazing industry—a 20 per cent increase in costs for an industry that only makes about a four per cent return.

Let us talk about the people of Cairns who will become doormats to the Labor Party’s policy—apparently the Labor Party do not care about the tourism industry. Apparently they do not care that aviation fuel is going to be picked up by the ETS—the employment termination scheme. They do not care that flights will be closed down. People will lose their jobs because of this political gesture, this political tokenism, this disgusting attack on Queensland working families by the Labor Party.