Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. I congratulate Senator Cormann on his recent appointment and wish Senator Brandis all the best in his future endeavours. We have come back to parliament in the middle of a stinking hot summer. The Bureau of Meteorology has just said that temperatures in January were exceptional, with countless records—far too many to mention. Sydney just sweltered through a day hotter than 47 degrees. We had flying foxes falling out of the sky because of the heat. This is the new normal, yet we have a government and an opposition which remain wedded to coal and wedded to climate pollution. Minister, what do you say to the people of Batman, who in a few weeks time will have a chance to tell you and the Labor Party what they think of your policies that are driving up pollution, destroying jobs, inflating energy prices and killing the Great Barrier Reef?