Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience (Senator McKenzie) to a question without notice asked by Senator O’Neill today relating to rural and regional Australia.

I quote:

We should reject Net Zero because it's bad for Australia, bad for our national interest, and it's going to do nothing to help the environment.

In addition:

Net zero emissions would just make us weaker.

Those are the words from Senator Matt Canavan, a member of this Morrison-Joyce government who, along with an alarming number of allies, has come to Canberra this week with the sole intention of scuttling the coalition's long-overdue backflip on climate policy. This has become an insurmountable political problem for Mr Morrison, himself no stranger to climate denialism antics, and it's a problem that encapsulates the inherent backwardness of this tired eight-year-long Liberal-National government. This Prime Minister won't hold a hose, mate, but he'll hold up a piece of coal in the House of Representatives as a cheap stunt. His sudden U-turn on climate change is what this country has come to expect from a Prime Minister whose ambition for this country goes no further than his own job title. There is none so pious as the new convert, and I'm sure we will soon see many of these agitators over there in the Nationals toeing the party line once they secure whatever off-budget pork-barrelling grant they have their eyes on.

But what is particularly galling to hear from those opposite is their breathless claim that they and only they are the true defenders of rural and regional Australia. This might come as a shock, but the views of the Nationals are not reflected in their communities. Rural and regional Australians, alongside the business sector and faith communities, are, in fact, leading the charge on climate action, and they do this because they accept the overwhelming scientific evidence and acknowledge the immense social and economic benefits of reform. The Courier-Mail today contains articles about the work of businesses, schools and community groups from regional Queensland, particularly Biloela and Wide Bay, who are using renewable energy and recycling to go green. In particular, I note the work of the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton, which has installed solar panels and batteries on a number of its schools, including Shalom College in Bundaberg. These schools are reportedly some of the first in Australia to have achieved 100 per cent renewable energy, and their actions show not only a commitment to reducing climate emissions but a devotion to the teachings of their Catholic faith.

In his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si': On Care of Our Common Home,Pope Francis said:

Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.

The Pope goes on to call on followers:

… to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development.

The Pope questioned:

… how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis …

It's perplexing that the Catholic churches and the schools in Senator Canavan's own diocese are increasingly powered by renewable energy, an act that is at once aligned with the church's teachings and yet somehow diametrically opposed to the senator's views. I am immensely proud, as an Australian and as a Catholic, that my church has led on the front of this issue, and I, like many Australians, am deeply disappointed by the sideshow occurring in Canberra this week as the Nationals and the Liberals, the warring wings in the Morrison-Joyce government, focus on themselves rather than on the issues impacting ordinary Australians.

Net zero by 2050 is not a craze, it is not a fad, nor is it some vast conspiracy theory. It is the upside to proper action on climate change. It is indisputable, and it is a position that is broadly accepted by large swathes of the communities, including faith communities, the business sector and rural and regional Australians. We've heard senators opposite posture and argue about who represents rural and regional Australians while they argue against the very same policies that those communities are crying out for. (Time expired)