Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is, once again, not my first speech. When considering the wording of this matter of public importance, I can't help but think that the use of the words 'complete failure' in relation to the Turnbull government's policies on climate change is awfully kind of my colleague Rachel Siewert of WA. When I think about the policies of this government in relation to climate change, the phrase that comes to mind used to be 'disappointed but not angry'. Well, I sit here this afternoon in this chamber thoroughly angry, and I believe that I speak on behalf of most of my generation when I say that.

Those in the Liberal-National section of this chamber, in particular, don't often talk about youth issues, apart from when they find that there have been proposed attacks which will affect the very many vested interests which fund them, and then of course they speak at length and with great emotional detail about the need to protect my generation from the intergenerational theft which is either the current tax at hand or the current spending proposition. I would like to ask this chamber whether it can think of any greater act of intergenerational theft than failing to act on climate change and whether it can think of any greater act of intergenerational theft than letting the vested coal and various fossil fuel interests which seem to run this government rob my generation of its future, of a safe and healthy environment in which to raise our kids—because I cannot.

Further to this, I cannot think of any greater act of theft than to deny my generation the opportunity to reap the benefits of the third great industrial revolution of our species. I'm talking of course of the transition to the renewable economy. We in the WA Greens have done extensive work on this issue, and I pay great thanks and respect to my former colleague Senator Ludlam in referring to the work he did on how we might transition our part of this ancient continent to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030. Among the many findings of this work, it was discovered that this process would create no fewer than 156,000 new jobs. That is 12,000 jobs a year, with 25,000 jobs in the solar PV industry alone. These are the kinds of things that are being sacrificed upon the altar of the coalition's allegiance to the various fossil fuel interests which now seem to so comprise their support base.

I would add also that we cannot discuss the issue of climate change at this current time without discussing the issue of the proposed Adani coalmine in Queensland, which again Senator Canavan seems to be such a huge fan of that you would have thought Adani had personally made sure that he wasn't a dual citizen in the end anyway. This proposal seeks to do nothing less than put the world's largest coal port through the Great Barrier Reef—one of the great natural wonders of the world, something which we in Australia are lucky enough to hold in trust for the entirety of mankind, for the entirety of humanity. It is ours to steward. Yet we treat it with such disrespect and disregard. We would put at risk 69,000 jobs within the state of Queensland on the vague promise of 1,500 jobs in the construction sector. And let me inform this chamber, as somebody from WA, that jobs in the construction sector and phases of the mining industry quickly disappear as we transition to the more automated aspects of the industry. They disappear and leave nothing in their place.

So we would risk this natural wonder. We would risk tens of thousands of jobs for 1,500 jobs, which will be gone as soon as they've come, to support a company which is linked to everything from multinational tax avoidance to the most horrendous types of environmental abuses, all because the Minerals Council tells those in the coalition that it's a good idea, all because the mining lobbies are in your ear 24/7 and all because nobody—I'm sad to say, on either side of this chamber that doesn't sit in the Greens section of the crossbench, or some of the more enlightened crossbench senators—has the courage and conviction to clearly stand up against this group and say no. This is not exclusively a failure of the coalition. It is also a shame shared by the Labor Party at a state and federal level. They campaigned for the Queensland election on the platform of saving the Great Barrier Reef and have only now withdrawn their support for the billion-dollar taxpayer subsidy to this tax-dodging multinational corporation because of a legal loophole they found themselves in. It is a disgrace.

This government's policy in relation to climate change is a disgrace. It is an act of intergenerational theft. While I am in this chamber, I will not let it go by without it being called out for what it is.