David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It's very interesting to hear from the government about the transition. I'd like to point out that when you transition you're actually moving away from something. The government are moving towards it. They are talking about transition while they expand the fossil fuel industry. This is now vandalism. They know what they are doing. They are destroying our future for the short-term profits of a fossil fuel industry who are not good-faith actors in this. The industry are betting on us not taking the climate action necessary to secure a safe future.

It is now the extremists that are demanding that we continue to expand the fossil fuel industry, that are giving subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, like the $1.5 billion for Middle Arm, to open up the Beetaloo. I have a real concern about what this is going to look like as we go forward, because currently fossil fuel companies are making bank. They are making record profits. Whilst making record profits, like at Whitehaven's Maules Creek coalmine, they're stealing water. They admitted to stealing a billion litres of water in the last drought, and they were outbidding local farmers for the water that was for sale. They're saying it's too expensive to recycle their tyres, so they're getting alterations to their licences so they can bury them onsite. Apparently, the $1.7 billion profit made by Whitehaven in the last year isn't enough to recycle tyres, so they say: 'Let's just bury them. That's someone else's problem. We're going to leave this massive hole when we go, and buried somewhere down there will be some tyres.' The next issue we're going to have to deal with is how we ensure that the major parties are taking this seriously.