George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Di Natale, the government unequivocally says that it believes that coal is good for humanity, and it unequivocally says that it believes that coal, in particular, is good for Australia, because, Senator Di Natale, human flourishing depends on a lot of things, and one of the things it depends upon is giving poorer people the best opportunities. If we have low energy prices and low electricity bills because we have some of the cheapest coal in the world, that is a good thing, and it is, in particular, a good thing for people at the bottom of the income scale, while your decision to support a carbon tax, I might say, was such a socially unjust decision—