Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Fool's gold—perhaps you are right, Senator Cameron. I think you're spot on. Democracy is a beautiful thing, and the people of Australia never get it wrong. That's why the Greens are in the minority, frankly. That's why they'll never form government unless they hop into bed with the Labor Party. I hope they don't get the opportunity to do that at the next election. This matter of public importance was proposed by Senator Siewert this morning:

The impacts of climate change are ravaging Australia right now, yet the Liberal, National and Labor parties are intent on propping up coal.

The Greens are so virtuous. They are the only ones who care about the environment, if you ask them. They're the only ones who do anything in the way of policy or lawmaking or practical initiatives to assist this country to manage its environment. They're the only ones who care. Just listen to them; it's what they say. It's complete bunkum, frankly.

Regarding donations, the point was made by Senator Waters, in her last contribution, that big coal, these awful companies that do all these nasty things, are buying their way through the lawmaking process. As Senator Williams pointed out, the biggest political donation in Australian history made to the Australian Greens was by none other than Graeme Wood who, jointly with one other ecoactivist in Tasmania, shut down the Tasmanian forest industry. That's how they bought their way through the legislative process. If we want to use terms like 'slippery', as was used in the last contribution by Senator Waters—she referred to members of this place and other political parties as 'slippery'—a prime example of being slippery is taking donations from people like Graeme Wood, who wished to shut down job-creating industries like the forestry industry in Tasmania.

Returning to this ridiculous MPI we're now debating, as I said, the Greens stand there, sanctimoniously, telling us they're the only ones who care and they're the only ones who'll save the environment, but they're like anyone else. They're politicians. Don't let them fool you. They want to win votes. They want to get in and exercise power because they believe, strangely and scarily enough, in the things that they say and those kooky policies that they run out there. They use misleading statements and paint an inaccurate picture for the people of Australia. It's all emotive. There are not many facts backing up what they say. I was listening to contributions earlier on today from one of Senator Waters's colleagues, Senator Whish-Wilson, who is from my state of Tasmania. He conflated all of these things that happened as a result of Adani and these nasty farmers in Queensland who've cleared land to make it more productive for agricultural purposes—

Senator Williams interjecting—

Food that we eat, Senator Williams—that's right. They conflate all of these things and put it all down to climate change and therefore we must shut down a whole heap of productive industries, shut down coal extractive industries and switch to completely renewable energy generation. Back here, in reality instead of la la land, where some of these policies are dreamt up, we know that's not sustainable and that's not reasonable.

We need to look at Tasmania as an example of what is happening when it comes to actual, practical, sustainable measures to generate energy in a way that is environmentally friendly. In Tasmania we have the Battery of the Nation proposal put forward by former Prime Minister Turnbull and supported by Prime Minister Scott Morrison. It's something the Tasmanian government is right behind. We've recently seen an announcement around the Battery of the Nation proposal and the Marinus interconnector link, the increased interconnectivity between Tasmania and mainland Australia, enabling Tasmania, when we generate more power, to sell it to the mainland—clean, renewable, base-load power from our hydro dams in Tasmania. It's been described as one of the biggest economic opportunities for Tasmania over the next 15 years and one of the biggest in history. It has the potential to drive massive development in renewable energy, including pumped hydro. We've got a number of wind farm projects, which I'll talk about a little later on, and solar farms, injecting up to $5 billion into the Tasmanian state economy and creating thousands of jobs, particularly where they're needed most—in regional Tasmania, regional centres in our state, not capital cities or larger population centres.

We've got to remember that Tasmania has a goal of being 100 per cent renewable energy generation based. That's because we've got reliable hydro power. It's something we've had for almost a century now and something we should be very, very proud of. The good news about this practical initiative, contrary to the ridiculous claims put in the MPI by the Australian Greens, who are all about emotive politics rather than facts, is that a Liberal government in Canberra, in conjunction with a Liberal government in Tasmania, is investing in renewable energy projects—projects that will bring down power prices in Tasmania. We invested $56 million in the Marinus Link, which, as I said before, will enable Tasmania to get more investment in renewable energy generation, something that wasn't mentioned by the Greens in their MPI or by Senator Waters in her contribution.

These are very exciting things and, I think, things that need to be brought to the attention of the Greens, who, as I said before, seem to be off in la-la land rather than focusing on what's happening in reality—actual projects, actual attempts to bring down our emissions and support for renewable energy projects. But it is important to look at where the Greens are about. They're not talking about, and there's no support for, these wonderful projects in Tasmania. I haven't heard a peep from any of my Tasmanian colleagues in the Australian Greens about what is happening. When it's all about clean, green energy, they're nowhere to be seen; but when it is about spruiking rubbish, lies about Adani and other entities like that, you hear them all the time.

Let's turn back the clock a little bit to comments made by former Greens leader and senator Bob Brown. He is the Messiah of the Green movement in Australia. People look to him for leadership in this strange world that is Australian Green politics. An article by Wayne Crawford in The Mercury says:

TASMANIA'S environmental lobby has expressed its preference for coal-fired thermal power generation over the construction of more hydro-power dams. The director of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society—

which is far larger than just a Tasmanian organisation these days—

Dr Bob Brown—

later a senator and now a private citizen—

said yesterday that if there was to be a new power station, then coal-fired thermal was "the best centralised option we have."

He said that despite disgracefully misleading claims—that the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry had made a whole range of misrepresentations about it—he stated:

… the conservation movement regarded a coal-tired thermal station as a "manifestly better" option than more dams.

That's quite the turnaround in recent times! But he was adamant. In an article in the same paper, the Hobart Mercury, dated 1 July 1980, it reported that Dr Brown had said that thermal power had nowhere near the same potential for destroying Tasmania's environment as hydro schemes did. We back, we support renewable schemes—things like hydro, which has generated thousands of jobs over a very long period of time in our state's proud history—as opposed to coal, which former senator Bob Brown backed at the time.

I'm disappointed my Tasmanian Green colleagues aren't here now. In Tasmania we do have a coalmine in the Fingal Valley, the Cornwall colliery. The people that work there are in a very small regional community. It is also the coal supplier for the Australian cement factory in Railton, north-western Tasmania, bordering the electorates of Lyons and Braddon. Again, it's an entity that employs many Tasmanians. I'd love Senator McKim and Senator Whish-Wilson to join me. We'll go on a bit of a drive to the Fingal Valley and talk to the workers there about the Greens' insane desire to just shut up shop and close down the mine. Then we can go along the road, along the Bass Highway, to the cement factory and talk to the workers there about how they're going to have to find far more expensive sources of energy generation to make the product that they make there. I dare say that would lead to a loss of jobs and perhaps the closure of that facility, noting that it is difficult for us to sustain business entities like that in a place like Tasmania, which is geographically isolated.

There is a cost to this zany world of Australian Greens politics over here. They can go on with this amazing rhetoric about how awful the major parties are—as I said, thank God the Greens will always be in minority. That cost comes in the form of jobs, lost royalties to state and territory governments and the fact that many Australians rely on coal, amongst other generation types, for their energy—53,000 direct jobs, most of them in regional areas, a part of Australia the Greens do not care about. Coal sector royalties contributed $3.8 billion in revenue to the Queensland state budget and $1.8 billion to the New South Wales state budget. Our coal exports are growing and in 2018 were worth $66 billion to the Australian economy, a huge amount that would be ripped out if the policies of the Greens got off the ground. Let's note that 60 per cent of Australian energy is coal generated. Take that out of the market and it would be a disaster: higher prices, job losses and economic stagnation—madness!