Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Look, I'm the sole listener! Nobody else listens; it's just me! I'll start posting about it soon! ABARES, that organisation that is well-known for being a radical outfit, says that employment in that sector has halved over the course of the period between 2000 and now. These are the people he pretends to care about. The Commonwealth Bank says that half to three-quarters of a per cent of GDP is gone. Those costs were felt disproportionately in rural communities. It's absolutely incumbent upon this government to take account of and be public about measures of rising costs, in terms of global emissions.

In all this shiftiness, conflating the cost to the budget and the cost to the economy—the shiftiness, the dishonesty—what is clear is that both in terms of cost to the budget and cost to the economy, the costs of action are dwarfed by the costs of inaction. There is no debate that those opposite won't debauch and debase or use to diminish our democracy. There is no pathway to stopping global warming by supporting the Greens political party. There is no pathway to stopping global warming by supporting the National Party or the Liberal Party. We have to reduce Australia's emissions, to manage new opportunities for the regions, for clean energy and for industrial diversification, and to take a credible position to global climate change negotiations. If you were interested in this, you'd read what Niall Blair, the former National's deputy leader in New South Wales, had to say. He said:

A net zero emissions future in Australia provides nothing but opportunities for our farmers. And, with 30 years to get there, they are ready, willing and able. It's also the right thing to do.

If you're interested in energy prices going down, if you're interested in increasing good jobs, if you're interested in more jobs and more investment in the aluminium and steel sectors and if you're interested in reducing emissions, you'll be voting Labor and supporting the Labor approach.