Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to stand and reflect on the quite outrageous contribution to this debate that the chamber just heard from Senator Macdonald. Senator Macdonald has accused the Greens of many things. He has made an art form of falsely accusing the Australian Greens of many things, but the central premise of Senator Macdonald's argument was that, because Australia, in his view—and I don't accept these figures, by the way—contributes less than 1.2 per cent of the total emissions of the world, therefore we shouldn't do anything to rein in our greenhouse gas emissions in this country. Well, that's akin to Senator Macdonald arguing that, because the amount of tax that any Australian pays in any given year is just a tiny fraction of the total tax take in this country, citizens should be able to withhold their taxes. That's the kind of logic that we're hearing from the coalition on this issue.

If Senator Macdonald is serious in the fundamental point that he makes, then I think what we just heard from Senator Macdonald is a speech about why he's about to cross the floor and vote for a Greens amendment that is currently before the chamber. He has said very clearly that in his view, if this amendment were passed, it would significantly curtail the way the Greens do politics in this country. Well, it wouldn't but, if he's serious about making that point, I expect to see Senator Macdonald cross the floor and vote for this amendment.

I also want to make this point with regard to the comments that Senator Macdonald made on Adani and its impact on the Great Barrier Reef: climate change is killing the Great Barrier Reef. That's what the science is telling us. That's what lived observation is telling us. That's what people who have dived on the reef, including Senator Di Natale and Senator Whish-Wilson, are telling us. It is what the scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying and understanding the Great Barrier Reef are telling us. Climate change is killing the Great Barrier Reef. And one of the primary drivers of climate change is humanity burning coal, and yet this government wants to proceed with the Adani mine, along with their mates in the Labor Party, both here in the Senate and in the Queensland government, and do everything they can—free coal, free water, free money—for Adani to get this shocking mine underway.

The Greens won't have a bar of it. We won't have a bar of it. We'll stand up and defend the Great Barrier Reef. We'll stand up and defend the people in the Caribbean and the people on the Florida peninsula right now, who are living through the impacts of climate change and who are having their lives absolutely smashed because of storms that are stronger due to the effect of climate change on our planet. We're all going to see it reflected in our insurance premiums, reflected in extra bushfires in this country, reflected in the loss of tourism dollars into Queensland and the loss of spectacular globally significant coral reef.