Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

This morning my home state of Queensland woke to the news that even though we are only at the start of September the Darling Downs, the Granite Belt, Maranoa and Warrego are facing catastrophic fire danger. The Bureau of Meteorology reports that temperatures are six to eight degrees above average today. Six to eight degrees above average is terrifying but what do we see from the Albanese government? The fifth new coal mine approved just last week.

The Black Summer bushfires that devastated the eastern states started off much the same way in 2019. Back then the Greens moved for the parliament to declare a climate emergency and Labor voted with us. At the time, in opposition, Mr Albanese he said that Labor would set their emissions targets in accordance with the science. Well, how times have changed. While our planet is boiling, Labor's climate policies are undercooked. Australia's winter of 2023 was the warmest since official records began in 1910. In the northern hemisphere, July 2023 was the hottest month on record as heatwaves scorched Europe and North America, and Greece continues to battle wildfires.

But back to the Australian environment minister: she's just approved a fifth new coal project in my home state of Queensland. It will run until 2073. I thought we were meant to be at net zero by 2050. That is another 50 years of coal when the science tells us we cannot open any new coal or gas mines. If we're going to stop the world going over the climate cliff, we cannot open a single new coal project, yet the Labor government have already approved five. Labor has over 100 coal and gas projects in the pipeline. Thanks to pressure from the Greens, we saw changes to the safeguard mechanism that make around half those projects unviable, and we will keep fighting to stop the rest.

On top of the confetti of new coal approvals, Labor are continuing to budget for $11 billion of public money each year in subsidies to fossil fuel projects, in the form of cheap diesel and accelerated depreciation, including for carbon bombs like Middle Arm and Woodside's Scarborough gas project. They're also continuing to accept just under $1 million in political donations from the fossil fuel industry—in a totally unrelated coincidence! Labor's commitment to the bottom line of their major donors in the coal, oil and industry is unwavering. The temperature records keep rising, fire danger is catastrophic, and the so-called environment minister just keeps approving new coalmines. It is cooked.