Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I will talk about the facts in this matter. Senator Whish-Wilson, through you, Chair, may not like those facts. Perhaps if there is another Greens' contribution to this debate they could address the fact that we have seen growing tourism numbers and we have seen a growing amount of coal at the same time.

I want to go to the Supreme Court ruling, which Minister Canavan mentioned today, because again it debunks the Greens' central claim. Their central claim is that, if the Adani coalmine goes ahead, there will be heaps more global emissions, therefore, the reef will suffer and, therefore, tourism will die. That has been debunked by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of Queensland said:

… the power stations would burn the same amount of coal and produce at least the same amount of scope 3 emissions whether or not the mine proceeded; if the mine proceeded it would not increase the amount of global greenhouse gases or any environmental impact resulting from those gases …

Again, you have the Supreme Court of Queensland—which is not known as a right-wing organisation—a judicial body, ruling on the facts, looking at the evidence and saying, 'No, actually, the Indian government, on behalf of the Indian people, are going to source coal, and they are going to source coal for their growing population so that hundreds of millions of Indian residents, Indian citizens, can get out of poverty, and so that hundreds of millions of Indians can for the first time perhaps have electricity where they live.' They are going to source that coal. They could source Australia's high quality coal from Queensland or they could source it from other parts of the world. What the Supreme Court found was that, therefore, this will not add to global emissions. But let's for a moment focus on that aspect. This goes to the complete inability of the Greens to have any sort of concern for poverty-stricken people in other parts of the world.

The Indian government is seeking to drag large chunks of their population out of poverty. It is very easy if you are a comfortable green somewhere saying: 'I want to abolish coal. I want to kill the coal industry. I want to stop these exports, even though the Supreme Court has said it is not going to add to global emissions.' You have got such an ideological fixation as a green that you are prepared to ignore what the Indian government is trying to do in dragging hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty. Why don't we, for just one moment, put ourselves in the shoes of those people who do not have access to some of the basics of life that we take for granted. If the Indian government could do it just through solar and if they could do it just through wind then they may well do that. They do have solar projects and they do have wind projects. But they have made the very rational judgement that the only way in the short term that they are going to drag these people out of poverty is by having base load coal and other sources of base load energy. What the Greens do not seem to care about is how transformative that would be for those individuals, for those families and for those communities. Just for a moment, take off the blinkers and put yourself in those circumstances. The Indian government is right to try and deliver that for their people.

We have an abundance of coal. It is, in many cases, much cleaner than coal from other sources. The Supreme Court said it will not add to the overall greenhouse gas emissions. Yet we will be dragging people out of poverty; creating thousands of jobs here in Australia; and continuing to maintain a critical industry for this nation, which pays billions of dollars every year in taxes, so that we can spend money on things like roads, hospitals and schools and the defence of our nation. But the Greens would throw all of that aside, with no regard for the jobs here in Australia, with no regard for the flow-on impact for our economy, completely disregarding that it will have no environmental impact and absolutely oblivious to the needs of people who could only dream of having the kinds of living standards that we enjoy here in Australia.

I think we should see this for what it is. We should see the callousness of the argument that is made consistently by the Greens when they deal with the Adani issue. The Greens' case does not stack up environmentally, it does not stack-up economically and does not stack up when it comes to having some regard for some of the poorest people in the world (Time expired)