Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We Greens make absolutely no apology for bringing this motion to suspend standing orders to the Senate at this time. Tackling climate change is the most significant thing we need to be doing in the world today, and it is absolutely critical that this parliament realises the urgency and the importance of dealing with climate change. The announcement that is being made today is setting us so far back in that it's propping up support for coal, gas and oil and destroying our country's ability to move forward to an energy supply that is clean and green.

I feel like I am living in an alternative universe. I studied climate science 37 years ago; it was 1980 when I first learned about the then newly emerging science of global warming. In those 37 years, that science has become clearer, more stark and absolutely more disturbing in terms of the impact climate change will have on the planet and on the peoples of this planet. We know that we can move forward. There is an absolutely positive future for Australia as part of the global community dealing with the challenges of global warming. It is a future in which we won't be looking down the barrel of increasing heatwaves that are going to kill thousands of Australians over the coming decades and we won't be looking down the barrel of more extensive fires. It won't be a future in which we're unable to grow food in our community. Today's announcement trashes that positive future that we could be looking forward to.