Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Lines must be speaking to different farmers than the ones I'm speaking to. I must say my good friend Mr Keith Pitt is himself a farmer, so there you go—a real-life farmer with a view on what is responsible climate change policy.

Senator Ayres made the first contribution to this debate by talking about movies, and, can I tell you, listening to this debate, I can see a sequel coming. I can see a sequel of the 2019 federal election coming. That's the movie I see coming down the road—a sequel. Let me tell you what happened in the 2019 election in my good state of Queensland. This is how the workers voted in my good state of Queensland. In the seat of Flynn, which includes Gladstone, home of the Boyne Island smelter and a lot of other hardcore manufacturing industries that are emissions intensive, Labor got 21.5 per cent of the Senate vote. That's how well the policies of the Labor Party resonated with the workers in what used to be a traditional Labor Party seat, based around Gladstone, in the electorate of Flynn—21.5 per cent.

Let's go north to the seat of Dawson. Again, that used to be a traditional Labor Party seat. The Labor Party got 19.5 per cent of the Senate vote in what was a blue-collar heartland, in Mackay et cetera. It was 19.5 per cent of the primary vote. That's what your workers think of the modern day Labor Party, which has walked away from their interests.

Then we go to another traditional Labor heartland—or it used to be—the electorate of Capricornia, based around Rockhampton. Their Labor Party Senate vote was 22.4 per cent. That's what the workers in North Queensland and Central Queensland think of the Labor Party's policies with respect to climate change. They're more interested in their jobs, in the welfare and future of their towns and in their families. When Senator Ayres talks about movies, I can see a sequel coming. I've been listening to the remarks from those opposite, the guffawing et cetera about Barnaby Joyce, and I can tell you his message resonates. It resonates with the workers in North Queensland, in Central Queensland and in areas like where my Senate office is based, in the federal seat of Blair, which is home to many ex-coalmine workers and ex-railway-workshops workers. They're proud people, blue-collar workers. A lot of those workers don't identify with the modern day Labor Party, and they're right not to identify with the modern day Labor Party.

I'd love to hear what Acting Deputy President Sterle says behind closed doors in Labor Party meetings. There was a lot of discussion about what happened in my party's party room earlier today. I would love to be a fly on the wall when Senator Sterle no doubt speaks a lot of common sense behind closed doors about how important it is that the Labor Party stay true to its worker heritage, but it has started to move away from that heritage. The person who is prepared to come out and speak publicly, of course, is Joel Fitzgibbon, in the Hunter electorate. What did he say yesterday in relation to the Labor Party last night voting against a number of sensible reforms which would allow money to be spent on clean technology, including capture and storage et cetera? This is what Joel Fitzgibbon said. I quote from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 23 June by David Crowe:

"We shouldn't be picky. It's not just about windmills and solar panels," he told radio station 2GB. "It's about all sorts of other innovation, including electric vehicle charging station roll outs, and improving the efficiency of heavy vehicles and capturing the carbon so that we can use gas and coal to generate energy without polluting the atmosphere."

"All these things will make a contribution. And we shouldn't be fighting about which innovations we choose, we should be using as many of them as we can."

I want to give the last word in this debate to Mr Joel Fitzgibbon of the Labor Party, of the great Hunter region of this country. He said:

… it was "ideological craziness" for Labor to oppose the changes.

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