Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

It is another day, it is another year of the Morrison government, and we have heard it all before. It is 2021 and the climate deniers on the back bench of the Morrison government are the same climate deniers who were there with the Turnbull government and they are the same climate deniers who were there with the Abbott government. When will this debate stop? Whether it is Prime Minister Morrison handing around the lump of coal in the parliament and declaring that coal is his 'friend', whether it was Prime Minister Abbott carrying on and saying that Labor's pricing on carbon would make a leg of lamb $100 or whether it was Mr Turnbull, who pretended to actually be someone who did support a positive policy on climate change—but the backbench roped him in again—the Morrison government, or the conservatives in this country, are never going to deliver the clean energy future that Australians deserve and Australians are calling for. They are never going to do it because that handful of backbenchers have them well and truly around the neck and refuse to let this country move forward. That is what it has come down to—a tiny handful of backbenchers who are holding Australia to ransom.

It is not so much what was in the budget but what wasn't in the budget. I have personally gone to great lengths to buy an electric vehicle—something those opposite won't support at all. Who could forget, at the last election, Senator Cash and the Prime Minister telling tradies that they were going to stand there and not let Labor take their utes away. Electric cars have an enormous capacity, but the choice in Australia is minimal because the federal government is doing absolutely nothing to promote electric vehicles in this country. There was not one word, not one sentence, not one dollar in the federal budget committed to electric cars. Yet in Europe we see all sorts of subsidies being offered. The cheapest electric car on the Australian market at the moment is the MG. At 44 grand, it's out of reach of most Australians, and shame on the Morrison government for keeping it there. Shame on you. If your budget had some vision and some plan, we could be producing electric cars in this country. But, no, those Neanderthals on the back bench just want to deny there's any change in our climate, that we actually need to do things urgently. They are supported by the Pauline Hanson One Nation Party. A handful of people are holding this whole country to ransom. Quite frankly, shame on you.

There is another thing that the Morrison government won't tell you the truth about. They always parrot: 'We're agnostic about power delivery. We just want to ensure supply.' What nonsense. They are not agnostic about power delivery. We know where their heart lies, and it's not with renewables and it's not with wind. I remember when we had that ridiculous inquiry into wind turbines. They were once again pandering to their backbench and a handful of Independents in the Senate at the time who thought that producing energy from wind was somehow the devil's work. What nonsense. We spent months conducting a trumped-up inquiry just to keep their backbench in line. They're cooking the books on the data, because they keep saying Australia will reach the Paris targets. But do you know what? The rest of the world and most Australians don't believe them.

How embarrassing it was recently. Thank goodness that, with the election of Mr Biden in the US, those opposite have had to tame their rhetoric a little bit. We saw the pathetic comments and speeches made by Mr Morrison, trying to pretend that somehow we are world leaders. Most Australians know we are not world leaders. It wasn't lost on the world leaders in the room that Australia is down the bottom, again because of a handful of backbenchers who just refuse to see the reality of what's in front of them, who have no interest in leaving a better world for their children and their children's children, who just want to put their head in the sand and pretend that somehow this is all going to go away.

We have seen Australian business get on with it. I was up in Karratha recently visiting Yara, who really are doing a lot of work with hydrogen. In the last week or so, I will admit, Mr Morrison suddenly discovered hydrogen. Apparently we are going to have hydrogen hubs all over the place. But, before last week, no. I guess it's pretty hard to sit in the parliament with a lump of hydrogen; it's much easier to sit there with a lump of coal, because that's what your backbenchers want to see. But at least he's moved a little bit on that.

When I talk to business leaders, when I talk to people in mining, they are quite annoyed, because it's those in the government who are holding them back. The government pretend to be there for business. They're there for the big miners. They're there for big business. Yet, with their antiquated, backward, bottom-of-the-world environmental policies, they are holding back business in this country. Business does want to forge ahead, it does want to put electric trucks on the road and it does want to cut its emissions, but where are the incentives from the government? They are not there. And what was in the budget? Very little. If you've got a plan and a vision for this country and where it's going, it certainly wasn't there last night—no vision, no plan for our future; no clean, green technologies advanced; nothing, because that backbench just holds you down, holds you back.

All we're hearing from Mr Morrison now, who apparently is agnostic about where our power comes from, is that there will be a gas led recovery. If he were truly agnostic, you would be looking at every innovation; you'd be holding your head up; you'd be looking to the world leaders about what they're doing on climate and how they're reducing their energy costs. I remember when Prime Minister Abbott said that repealing Labor's price on carbon would save people $550 a year on their electricity bills. When are you going to fess up and say that just wasn't true? We've seen electricity costs spiralling out of control for many consumers. I'm thankful that, in Western Australia, we're not part of the grid mess. It's nearly as bad as the Murray-Darling Basin, the mess you've made of electricity in this country. But that's what the Prime Minister said—that people would be $550 a year better off. What a nonsense. It's simply not true, like the $100 leg of lamb, like the towns that were going to disappear off the map, according to the climate sceptics opposite. I mean, come on! It is time that someone on your front bench, one of your ministers, actually stood up to that handful of climate deniers and said, 'We are not going to allow you any longer to hold Australia back.'

There is a whole clean energy future out there that I certainly want for my grandchildren. It's a little like marriage equality. It was young people who led that debate, because they were sick and tired of older Australians saying to them, 'It's never going to happen.' I can tell you that my granddaughter, Charlee, who is 17, and my grandson, who is 22, can't believe the sort of rhetoric that you come out with. They're ordinary, average kids, but they are concerned about their future, the future that you are denying them because of your clinging to old-fashioned, outdated ideas because a handful of your backbenchers won't move. It is the young people in Australia who are more and more questioning what on earth you are doing, because it's their future that you're denying; it's their future you're holding back. They want a clean, green future, and, just like with marriage equality, they just don't know where you are heading with this, and they don't agree with you.