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

Listening to Senator Davey, you'd think that the Morrison government has some radical plan for our future and climate change, but we all know that it will be a plan to do very little. So I'm not quite sure what all of that carry on was about.

I want to talk about some of the points the senator made before I get to the motion itself. Eight years in office, 21 energy policies, yet all we've heard from the Morrison government this week is that a part of the Morrison government, the National Party, need more time. Australia hasn't got more time. We are sending the Prime Minister of this country to Glasgow in a few short weeks. And what's he got? Nothing at this point. He keeps saying that apparently he's going to make a decision with or without the Nationals. If you read between the lines, apparently the cabinet will make that decision. But some of the Nationals are in the cabinet. So, what are they going to do? Resign their commissions? Quite frankly, if they're not prepared to sign up to cabinet solidarity, that is what they should do. Otherwise, they're not entitled to stay there.

One of the senator's comments was that we need to work out how agriculture contributes. Guess what? A lot of farmers are already contributing. How out of touch are you? How out of touch you are. I invite you to speak to the AgZero2030 group in Western Australia. They're a group of farmers and primary producers who are leading the way. They're not hobby farmers. They're farmers with broadacre who are leading the way. And, yes, some of them are planting trees. They want to see the Morrison government sign up to a net zero target. They want the research and development money. They want to stop doing it themselves and stop spending their own money. They want to have that research and development. That's what they want to contribute to. When you talk to them, they've got no idea where the Nationals are. In fact, Simon Wallwork, who owns a farm of almost 4,000 hectares with his partner Cindy in Corrigin, a farm I visited last year, believes that you're out of step. That's what he said on the ABC yesterday.

Today, when Senator McKenzie tried to represent the National Party as all-encompassing, I noticed that farmers were about fifth or sixth on the list that Senator McKenzie claimed to represent. You don't represent all of regional Australia. You didn't have a federal senator or MP in Western Australia the last time I looked, and you haven't had for quite some time. In fact, the leader of the state Nationals in WA, Mia Davies, is quite alarmed that Mr Joyce is the leader again. She's been very public about her comments. In 2018, she was one of the first to say that Mr Joyce should resign. When Mr Joyce topped Mr McCormack recently, she was the first to come out and say that he's got a lot of bridges to build, and she's still standing by the comments that she made in 2018.

The other thing you wouldn't have noticed Ms Davies say—because you're so obsessed with yourselves—was that Mr Joyce is a destabilising influence. She said that at the time. She must have had a crystal ball. What are we seeing right now? We are seeing that destabilisation absolutely on display. Ms Davies also went on to say that the Nationals were focused on themselves, on their own internal matters. Well, that's all we've seen this week—the Nationals breaking out, trying to hold not only the Morrison government to ransom but Australia to ransom.

I want to talk about this motion from the Greens. It demonstrates, once again, that they're not serious about being part of an Australian climate change solution. Instead, they're playing their immature game of making themselves the story for a moment of social media glory in a week when the Morrison government is in disarray over climate change. Seriously, is this motion the best they can do? It doesn't even name the government. It certainly doesn't name their recalcitrant rump—that handful of members from the National Party who claim to represent regional and rural Australians, yet don't have a single National representative in the vast state of WA.

So let's have a look at what is really going on here. We know that Mr Morrison is being held captive by the Nationals, holding Australia back and not allowing Australians to focus on the things that are really of interest to them, but let's look at the Greens' record when it comes to backing in good climate change policy. Who could forget the dirty deal the Greens did with the Liberal opposition when, together, they voted down Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme? Without this scheme, the Greens have added about 218 million additional tonnes of carbon.