Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is a Labor motion, an attack on the Greens, on a policy debate that is nearly 10 years old. I want to remind Labor senators in here that this has been brought forward on the first day of the last week of the year, the last chance we have in this parliament to hold this government to account. May I remind Labor senators that this year they lost an unlosable election, an unlosable election that was supposed to be a climate election. The message today, for anyone who cares about acting on climate and climate breakdown, was out the front of Parliament House this morning. It said: 'Morrison, your climate crisis destroyed my home.' That was from Belinda and Dean from the Northern Rivers, with a few scraps of their burnt-out home, standing in front of this building, saying, 'Do something about this crisis.' Their message was: 'We want all politicians to listen, cooperate and listen to the science.' What do they get from the Labor Party? Bickering over a 10-year-old policy failure.

This is a political strategy by the Labor Party. It's all about the Labor Party. It is a huge distraction, a deliberate distraction from the fact that they have no policy on climate. You cannot support coal and you cannot support oil and gas in a time of climate emergency and have a climate policy. It's all about the Labor Party trying to peel votes off the Greens. In fact, I suspect it's not just about the Labor Party; it's about one particular Labor senator in this chamber: Penny Wong.