Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McKim. Overnight, the United Nations released what it describes as a lesson on how to defuse the climate time bomb. It makes it very clear that the most urgent action we need to take is to stop new fossil fuel projects, and stop them now. But what has Labor presented to this parliament? The safeguard mechanism: a blueprint written by the psychopaths running fossil fuel corporations for implementation by the psychopaths who do their bidding here in this parliament. It's a culpable act of delay and deception that large numbers of people will pay for with their lives. And, of course, the big polluters are cheering hard for it because they know it's a deliberately crafted protection racket for business as usual.

Labor has created a narrative, supported by a craven press gallery in this place—with only a few honourable exceptions—whereby somehow aiming for a safe climate is seen as unreasonable. And the Greens, the only party taking the looming catastrophe seriously, are told that we're being too ambitious, that the Greens are somehow letting the perfect be the enemy of the good—as if there's anything good in the steaming pile of dog vomit bowled up by Labor. And this is when it's the Australian Labor Party lining up to join in on what Greta Thunberg today described as the greatest betrayal in human history. The Labor Party wants the Greens to join them in that great betrayal. The planet is literally cooking. Labor needs to get serious or get out of the way.