Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We're very disappointed at the response from the Labor Party on this. Millions of Australians voted for change at this last election. This is why we have a progressive alliance in this parliament: to actually act on the key challenges of our time, like climate change. While people around this country, including in my home state of Tasmania, are preparing for another flood event after more record rainfalls, what do we see in this budget? More public money for fossil fuel projects—for the Beetaloo basin and the Northern Territory gas hub. There is over $40 billion across the budget for fossil fuel subsidies.

This is not what Australians voted for. Australians voted for change and it's clear from this budget that was delivered last night that they're just going to have to wait a little bit longer before the Labor Party wakes up and realises that we are in a climate emergency and that we need to do everything we can to reduce emissions. It is insanity in this day and age in a climate crisis to be giving more taxpayers' money to fossil fuel projects. Absolutely that's what this amendment is there to do—it's to remove taxpayers' money to fund fossil fuel projects, to pour more petrol on the fire. Communities around Australia are looking at these temperature and weather records being broken every day. Just this week, Sydney recorded its highest annual rainfall on record. It's expected in the next few weeks that records will be broken across Victoria. In Tasmania, two of our key rivers had record flood levels just last week. Australians have woken up to this. When is this government going to wake up to it as well?