Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It sounds like a pretty good system I think, Senator Scarr. I think we should seek to adopt it here in this country—or, at least, the Greens and the Labor Party should get behind it and support it. Because guess what has happened? All these words that have been bandied around, and all the scandalous comments—guess what has happened here in this instance?

The Liberal and National parties, before last year's election, said to the Australian people and to the people of Central and North Queensland: 'If we're elected, we will fund a feasibility study into a coal-fired power station at Collinsville. Given the previous work has been done, given there's some argument for it. Given the ACCC report, which showed clearly that we need investment in base load and reliable power.' Clearly there are some market failures preventing that investment. We haven't seen a base load power station built in this country for over 10 years. So, given all that evidence, we said to the Australian people, 'We think it makes sense to have a look at this.' We publicly and openly said it to the Australian people, and they supported us. They voted for us. We achieved a majority in the House of Representatives. That gave us the right to form a government. Now the government is implementing the promises it took to the Australian people.

Apparently that process that I've just mapped out—and I don't think anyone contests that was the process—is the basis for a great scandal according to what we just heard from Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Ayres! Have you ever heard anything more absurd than a government implementing its own election promises? That's the basis for some great scandal!

A government senator: Never heard of it!

Never heard of it! It has never been done apparently. Maybe they've never done it. They should try it some time. The real reason we come back to is: why is this motion being moved? Let's look into it a bit more.

The motion is being moved by Senator McAllister. Senator McAllister is from New South Wales. If you go to Senator McAllister's website on the New South Wales Labor Party's site, it says:

In 2003 Jenny founded the Labor Environment Activist Network, and served as one of its inaugural convenors

Otherwise called LEAN. I think that LEAN these days use the term 'Labor Environment Action Network'. But apparently it must have been an 'activist' network to start with. That's very interesting. I didn't know that. So Senator McAllister formed this LEAN group, which is basically the Bob Brown wing of the Labor Party. They now are moving this motion to prevent jobs and investment in North Queensland. Where are the Queensland Labor senators? I don't think any of them have spoken. I don't think any of them have moved this motion. None of them had the guts in this place to come up and tell the people of Queensland why they don't support coal jobs.

They're a bit shy on this, because they know that the people of Queensland have worked them out. Ms Jo-Anne Miller, the former Queensland member for Bundamba has said, Labor would like to take the royalties from the coal industry in Queensland with one hand and with the other hand poke the industry in the eye. The people of Queensland have worked them out. Until you get into this place and actually have the guts to come forward and put your arguments—not sit behind the LEAN group, the Bob Brown wing of the Labor Party—the people will continue to desert a once proud Labor Party in Queensland.

What did we see from LEAN the other day? This tells you a bit about who they are. Probably not many people know about LEAN. I think you're about to hear a lot more about them. Apparently the LEAN group the other day sent an email to their supporters, which was reported in The Australian last week:

The Labor Environment Action Network is launching a campaign to encourage people to junk their gas-powered household appliances, as the party's environmental wing escalates its campaign against using the resource as a transitional energy source.

The email goes on to say:

… a residential gas-to-electric program comes with an added bonus: it will free up gas for industry…

They want people to get rid of their gas appliances! This is their policy.

I've heard of a lot of political parties over the years who have wanted to come up with a policy or a program that is a barbecue-stopper, but I think this is the first time in Australian political history that a party has actually taken a literal barbecue-stopper as their policy. This policy is to shut down barbecues. I don't know about you, but my barbecue is powered by good old LPG. That's what I hook up to it every week. I fire it up. Most Australians probably have a gas fired barbecue. You could use coal; there are some of those around. I don't. Maybe I should, but I don't have a good old coal fired barbecue. I've got a gas fired one.

They want to shut them down. They want to stop all the barbecues in Australia. This is the madness that is coming if you just scratch the surface of the modern Labor Party. It is the madness that is underneath. This is what people like Mr Joel Fitzgibbon in the other place is exposing. He is doing his best to cover it up with a few high-vis shirts but it's becoming increasingly difficult. As he said the other week, he might have to split away. I don't think he has to form his own party. He can come and join us. He will fit in well in the Nats. We'll take him. A bit of polish and he will be right.

We need to expose this to the Australian people. This debate is very important because it shows the actual motives. It shows the direction that the Labor Party is headed in in this country. People hear the word 'Labor' and they think it must be something about jobs and workers. But that was a long, long time ago. They now want to take people's gas appliances away from them. I didn't think it would get this crazy but it has. This is from their own people. They want to take away people's barbecues. They don't want to support the use of our own natural resources to support our manufacturing industries. They basically now want to help out competing countries overseas with our own resources and then buy back solar panels and wind turbines at great subsidy, to the cost to the Australian taxpayer. I'm standing here as someone who wants to use our natural resources to create jobs in this country, because I want to see our manufacturing sector come back to strength, and that won't happen while we deny Australians the use of our own God-given, high-quality natural resources.