Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Talk about methane-eating monsters! I did not know I was about to follow one! This is just the typical coalition fear factor. Here they come. They did nothing for a decade. You had a decade of lost opportunities to try to deal with the biggest political, economic, social and environmental challenge facing this country and what do you do now? You give us the usual fear campaign. You get the fear campaign from the Libs and the fear campaign from the National Party. You have simply been running this line for all you are worth. Senator Joyce’s contribution is one full of cliches and one-liners designed to try to get the next headline. He is not prepared to deal with the real issues facing this economy—the real issues facing all Australians. Australians understand the issue. They understand better than the coalition that we are faced with a future of more storms, more droughts and rising tides if we do not deal with carbon pollution.

Yet we have the coalition deniers and sceptics—an absolute rabble who cannot agree with anyone on their own side. They are fighting each other in the party room and are out here trying to scare the population by saying that dealing with the future of this country will mean that prices will go up and jobs will be lost. It is quite interesting. I have been on all of the committees that Senator Joyce has been on and I have heard all the arguments that he has put up. Yet the sugar industry said to the RET inquiry hearing, ‘We want to be in this because it will create jobs in the bush; it will create jobs from Grafton in northern New South Wales right up to Mareeba.’ That is where the jobs will be created. Why do they say that? They say that because they want to engage in the opportunities that the CPRS and the RET scheme give them to create jobs in the bush. They are planning five mill upgrades in Far North Queensland, providing 71 megawatts of installed capacity in that area; three mill upgrades in Herbert in northern Queensland; two mill upgrades in Mackay, in the Whitsunday hinterland; four mill upgrades in the Wide Bay-Burnett southern region; and a further mill upgrade in northern New South Wales.

The sugar industry know what the issues are; they know what the opportunities are. They say thousands of jobs will be created. I asked them a specific question: ‘Are these green jobs?’ They said: ‘Yes, these are green jobs, because we are taking the opportunity that these schemes provide to build jobs in the bush.’ Yet all you get from Senator Joyce’s contribution is more methane emissions; methane emissions, rhetoric and fear are all you get from the National Party, supported by some in the Liberal Party. Do you know what is going to happen? You are going to be overruled. The coalition are going to have to accept the reality of climate change and all the troglodytes, all the dinosaurs and all the rabble that make up the people that you are speaking for, Senator Joyce, are going to have to give in. You are going to have to give in because the interests of Australia demand that you give in. The interests of Australia say that the jobs that will be created in the future will be green jobs. The jobs that will be created will be in the bush, and all your fear campaigns, all of your rhetoric will stand for nothing. The Australian population know the issues that are important. The Australian population will reject the coalition rabble that you represent—a rabble with no ideas, a rabble with no future and a rabble with a very temporary leader. (Time expired)