Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of urgency put to the Senate by the Greens, which is:

The record-breaking coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and Kimberley reefs and the choice between the Adani coal mine and healthy reefs.

This matter of urgency is fundamentally dishonest and part of the usual Greens environmental scare campaign to gain attention. Clearly, this matter of urgency is trying to establish a link between the establishment of a coalmine in North Queensland and coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and Kimberley reefs. There is no link between coalmines in Queensland and coral bleaching, just like we will never stop climate change by making our pensioners, families and small businesses pay more for their electricity.

This is another Greens untruth which is designed to cause guilt and play on the gullible while thousands of Queensland jobs and businesses in the tourism industry are placed at risk. If you are an international student and you want to dive on the Great Barrier Reef and you listen to the Greens you will expect to find a wasteland. This is crap. The Great Barrier Reef is still a great wonder of this world. If you are an international tourist and you want to dive on the Great Barrier Reef and you listen to the Greens you will be expected to believe that coral bleaching only began to happen after the industrial revolution. I wonder what happened about 8,000 years ago to the Great Barrier Reef when the sea levels rose and Tasmania became separated from the mainland of Australia? I am sure that geological records show that in the natural cycles of climate change the Great Barrier Reef's coral suffers damage and then naturally repairs.

If you listened to the Greens, with their extremist views on the environment, you could be forgiven for thinking that once coral is damaged or bleached that is it: it will never recover or regenerate—another Green untruth. My research shows that in fact a coral reef in northern Australia, the Scott Reef, was severely damaged by the warming of the seas during the 1998 El Nino. It lost 90 per cent of its coral to climate induced bleaching, and in 12 years the reef regenerated itself. Marine scientist James Gilmour and his team found that the reef increased its coral cover from nine per cent to 44 per cent in just 12 years. More recently, marine scientists Dr Carly Kenkel and Kate Quigley have discovered that coral is changing with its environment, growing more resistant to warmer conditions. They also accept that there is nothing humans can do to stop the reefs turning white in the short term. Surveillance and conservation are the best we can do until Mother Nature plays her regenerative role.

You cannot have a decent, reasonable debate with the Greens when they continue to refuse to acknowledge and accept the science of natural, cyclical climate change, which is also acknowledged by Tim Flannery in his book The Weather Makers and, of course, Al Gore in his book An Inconvenient Truth. The Greens refuse to acknowledge the fact that, as found in the 600,000 years of ice core samples taken from the Antarctic, the average global temperature has been much hotter than today's average of about 14 degrees and, of course, much colder. The oceans have risen and fallen. The coral has been destroyed and bleached and then regenerated. The Greens' extremist views on coral bleaching, cyclones, droughts, floods and other naturally occurring weather events immediately place the blame on Australian families, workers and businesses because they are not paying more for their electricity and power. They also place a guilt trip on coalmine workers and the Queensland communities that depend on the wealth and prosperity they create. This is a dangerous policy, because if we put another tax on our power and electricity and make them more expensive without our overseas competitors doing the same thing then the only outcome that will be achieved will be a continuing loss of Australian manufacturing jobs and a severe decrease in the wages and standard of living of all Australian workers.

This is the truth: we cannot stop climate change; we can only make plans to survive climate change. If we followed the alarmist views and extremist policies of the Greens, we could stop emissions of CO2, live in a cave and burn candles. Let's get real! The natural cycles of climate change, which even Al Gore and Tim Flannery acknowledge in their works, and which have happened for at least the last 600,000 years, will continue to happen. That is the truth.