John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make some comments on a couple of points that Senator Waters made about donations to political parties. I just find it amazing that, at the 2010 election, Graeme Wood, former owner of Wotif, donated $1.58 million to the Greens. At the time, it was the greatest donation to any political party in the history of Australia. Of course, come the 2 July 2016 election, Mr Wood tossed in another $600,000. That's $2.2 million donated by one bloke to the Greens party. It gets worse. I did a little bit of research into the CFMEU. What does CFMEU stand for? Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. And they donate to the Greens. What do the Greens hate? The Greens hate construction, forestry, mining and any energy that's generated unless it's renewable. Why did that union donate $50,000 in 2015 to the Greens in the ACT? That's just amazing. This is such a farce. Let me just read a bit of my op ed that was in The Australian a month or so ago:

There has been a lot of discussion of late on coal-fired electricity and climate change. The IPCC has come out with another meeting and people like former Liberal leader John Hewson have entered the debate. Take a look at the facts. Australia has 22 operating coal-fired generating plants of at least 30 megawatts capacity—

There are 22 in total and we're shutting them down and not building any new ones. The article continues:

Compare that with China, our biggest trading partner, which has 1,003 coal fired power generating plants operating to the same capacity and a further 130 under construction.

We have 22 in total; China has 1,003 with 130 under construction.

The extra 130 planned in China will, on their own, produce more CO2 than the whole of Australia …

I'm going to ask a very simple question, Senator Macdonald. What do you think they're going to burn in the existing 1,003 coal-fired generation plants and the 130 under construction? They're going to burn coal.