Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I've got to tell you I was so delighted to hear what the Labor Party is doing to fix the environment in this country, after what we've just had described—quite erroneously, I think—by the last speaker. It's like people don't actually go and do their research before they get up and say what they say. If there was ever a debate in this place that was more tone-deaf or more demonstrative of being out of touch, then I'd love to know about it. Here we are talking about a climate crisis—I concede that there are issues we should always be taking seriously in our environment, but not one of the last two speakers mentioned something affecting every Australian, and that is the cost of living. Not one of them. They are totally out of touch with this issue that actually affects every single Australian.

It does say something about this government, who rely on the support of the Australian Greens to get its legislation through this place. You have this faux fallout between Labor and the Greens, as evidenced by Senator Payman's well-constructed yet perhaps a little flimsy contribution to this debate. Here we are talking about how the Greens don't really have any environmental policies and it's all about TikTok grabs and things like that. But I have to remind Senator Payman that they were born out of this stuff, and they are destructive for the economy. Let me remind you: these are the people you rely on for your place in this parliament, to be the government. They are all about the environment, not about the economy, and this bill is all about exactly that. It is all about making it harder to earn a buck, making it harder to pay the bills, making it harder to generate electricity, making it harder to cut down trees for beautiful pieces of furniture like the ones that adorn this chamber. I always make reference to that, and I will come back to the Labor Party's record on forestry, particularly in Western Australia.