Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will not be supporting this motion, because the Carmichael mine is not the way to deliver jobs for regional Queensland. What it will deliver is more support to a tax-dodging multinational coal company who have said that they want to automate this project from pit to port, so more robots. And if there are any workers then they'll be suffering from black lung disease, which is back in Queensland, as you well know, and is starting to kill coalmining workers. That's not to mention the fact that half of the reef has already been killed from climate change, which is driven and turbocharged by coal.

We can have jobs in the regions, we can have prosperity, we can keep the lights on and we can save the planet if we actually fund renewable energy projects rather than coal projects. It is disappointing to see this old drum being banged by a party that purports to represent farmers, who are having their livelihoods and their water trashed by fossil fuels.