Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Duniam talks about madness, and I think that's quite appropriate for talking about climate change in the coalition. The madness that has dominated the coalition for over 10 years about climate change and coal-fired power stations is just a disgrace. The situation we now have is this hypocritical proposition from the Greens: 'The impacts of climate change are ravaging Australia right now'. We know that. Labor understand that. Yet it goes on to say, 'yet the Liberal, National and Labor parties are intent on propping up coal.' A purely political position adopted by the Greens! Hypocrisy just oozes out of them. In 2009 there was an opportunity to have a carbon pollution reduction scheme, but, because it didn't meet this pure standard that the Greens wanted, they voted with Mr Abbott and the Liberal Party to kill a price on carbon. It's crazy for them to stand up here. Phil Coorey in 28 June 2014 wrote this very interesting article about climate change, which said:

The only mainstream party never to have taken a risk, never to have put any skin in the game, and never to have lost a vote over it, is the Greens. Throughout the entire eight-year saga, they have chained themselves to the altar of policy purity and watched others suffer for their ideals.

The result is a big fat nothing.

…   …   …

Because they believed the CPRS to be inadequate, they voted it down twice. The second time was the day after Abbott knocked off Turnbull. Liberal senators Judith Troeth and Sue Boyce realising the need to establish a foothold for carbon pricing, crossed the floor to vote with Labor. The Greens helped the Coalition kill it.

That's the record of the Greens when it comes to climate change. They have absolutely nothing to be proud of. When we lost government, we produced a report on its implications and how it affected the Labor Party. The report said that dealing with the Greens caused great harm to both Labor and environmental policy objectives.

The raison d'etre for the Greens party over the last decade has been to attack, undermine and/or colonise the Labor Party's policies with an increasing ferocity in an attempt to win over one or two inner-city seats in Melbourne and Sydney. The effect has been that these policy objectives have themselves been undermined, attacked and turned into political footballs. Had the Greens supported the CPRS, Australia would have transitioned to a carbon pricing scheme years ago and with the support of the Australian public. Rather than seize this historical opportunity, harness the mood of the nation and build on the momentum the Greens party set in train a bitter and divisive political storm. I think if you cut this back to what it really means, it was the Greens' political stupidity, their political purity, their self-interest and, deep down, a lack of care for the environment. If they actually cared about the environment they would have done something about it.

I have said on many occasions in this place that I brought my family up on the back of coal. I worked at Liddell power station. It was a piece of crap back in 1973 when I started work there, and it's even worse now. There's absolutely no reason why we should be putting any public money into Liddell power station. But the hypocrisy of the Greens is absolutely huge. I looked after families in the Muswellbrook-Singleton area who relied on coal to bring their families up, but the reality is that coal, as a baseload proposition, is now not the modern way to produce power. That's the reality.

We hear lots of talk about coal. We heard Senator Duniam talk about the coal for the cement factory in Tasmania. The reality is, unless there is some new scientific revolution about how to produce either steel or cement without coking coal, we've got a problem. Coal will be around for a long time to come, producing coke, producing steel and producing cement. That's why you produce metalliferous coal, coking coal. There's a big difference between coking coal and steaming coal. Even the CFMEU understand that there is an issue with the long-term viability of steaming coal, and that's why we have indicated that we will take steps to reduce carbon pollution in this country. We will probably do it without the Greens support.

If the Greens continue to run this ideological purity, this nonsense that they talk about all of the time and use as an excuse not to deliver a decent scheme in this country, then my view is they will pay a big price for it in forthcoming elections. You can tell the Labor Party that you won't be supporting our policy, but that will have repercussions for the Greens in future elections. I think the public are over it. I won't be lectured by the Greens on climate change. I won't be lectured by the Greens on any issue where they are running ideological purity over common sense.

It's common sense to actually deal with this issue. Workers will be working producing coking coal for years to come. Steaming coal will decline. What we need to do is to make sure that we have the technology and the jobs to look after the workers in the Hunter Valley, in Queensland and in Victoria. I was in the Latrobe Valley last week, and the workers down there don't know how long their jobs are going to go. Good, working-class families are concerned about their future, and they're entitled to be. We need a government, a Labor government, who will look at ensuring that we have a modern industry in renewable energy in this country and provide opportunities for coalminers around the country. That won't be achievable if we continue to support the nonsense that the Greens spout about coal in this country. There is always going to be a need, unless there is a massive change, for coking coal in this country. I want to make sure that we have alternative jobs for workers in coalmining areas in this country. I don't want them to be treated the same as the workers in the Appalachians in the US, where they are thrown on the scrap heap and left to rely on nothing but a terrible social security system in the United States. We want to have new skills and new jobs, and only a Labor government will deliver that.

It's only Labor that understands these issues. The Greens patently do not. They are too busy carving each other up. They are too busy attacking each other. They are in chaos and disarray as a political party. You've only got to look at what they're doing. I wish they would, for once, consider what we need to do to actually change the situation in this country.