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

Here we find ourselves yet again with the political duopoly in this place colluding to do the bidding of big fossil fuel. In this particular circumstance, the Labor and Liberal parties are colluding to do the bidding of the gas cartel. Even more specifically, in this place, the Labor and Liberal parties are colluding to do the bidding of Santos.

We should all understand the context of this debate. Fires are burning across the eastern seaboard of Australia. Globally, temperature records are being smashed, ocean temperatures are soaring and ice fields and glaciers are melting. Folks, if you can't actually feel—if you can't actually understand—the seriousness of the situation that we find ourselves in, you are simply not paying attention. The feedback loops have well and truly kicked in. The Gulf Stream is flickering. The great drivers of a relatively stable climate on this planet are beginning to falter. If you can't think about what that means for yourselves, think about what it means for your kids and your grandkids and their kids and their grandkids. We are in far more trouble than most of us realise. There's a very real possibility that we've left our run too late to avoid catastrophic impacts. There's a very real possibility that we've left our run too late to avoid a significant collapse in the society that we all take for granted.

History is going to view us collectively in this place very, very poorly indeed, unless we get our act together and act now, act strongly and act urgently. We could do that and we must do that, but it will only happen if the Labor and Liberal parties divorce themselves from big fossil fuel companies. This legislation shows clearly that that is a long, long way from happening. Believe me; Santos, the gas cartel and the big fossil fuel corporations have got their hooks well and truly into the political duopoly in this place, and that is proven starkly by this legislation.

Let's get back to first principles here. The Labor Party's policy of a 43 per cent reduction by 2030 is aligned to a world of more than two degrees of warming. We're going to see food shortages, mass displacement, mass involuntary migration, floods, fires, storm surges and sea level rise. The Treasurer acknowledged only last week that the government are not even on track to deliver on their pathetic 43 per cent target. But rather than actually do something about that, rather than actually taking some action to meet their legislated—although inadequate—emissions reduction target, what's the government been doing for the last week? Colluding with the opposition to enable gas expansion.

The origins of this bill clearly come out of the safeguard negotiations, where the amendments secured by the Greens increased the capital cost of developing the dirty carbon bomb Barossa project and significantly increased the capital cost, in some estimations, by close to $1 billion. The people of the Tiwi Islands successfully challenged the project in the Federal Court and again pushed up the costs of that project—a beautiful thing! But now Santos is calling in its favours. And here we find ourselves today, with the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the National Party all working together to get this bill through not for the planet, not for our children and our grandchildren, and their kids and grandkids, but for Santos.

A valid question is: how can Santos just click their fingers and make sure this legislation sails through the parliament? Well, maybe Senator Chisholm could tell us about that because he came straight from Santos to the Senate. A former political strategist of Santos is sitting in this chamber right here, right now, as this legislation is debated. Maybe Senator Chisholm knows full well how Santos can click their fingers and get legislation like this through the Senate. Maybe it's the well over $1 million that Santos has donated to the Labor Party over the years. Maybe it's the over $1 million that Santos has donated to the Liberal and National parties over the years. Maybe it's their lobbyist Tracey Winters, a former employee of Martin Ferguson—who went, by the way, from being the resources minister who caused all the gas shortages and cartel behaviour on the east coast gas market straight to the job as head of APPEA.

Last week in Senate estimates, the Attorney-General's Department confirmed that Ms Winters, who now runs a consultancy to advise Santos, should be on the lobbyist register but she is not. We also had it confirmed by departmental officials that they have met with Ms Winters this year when she should have been registered as a lobbyist and disclosing to departmental officials. So what have we got? A situation where an unregistered lobbyist for Santos is running around putting the squeeze on the major parties in this place. It's absolutely disgusting.

Make no mistake, big fossil fuel has got its hooks into the Australian Labor Party and big fossil fuel has got its hooks into the coalition in this place. There is a revolving door that exists for Labor and Liberal-National Party politicians. They do their time in this place, delivering outcomes for big fossil fuel companies, and then they roll out the door into cushy, plum appointments in those very same fossil fuel companies. The list is nearly endless of former major party politicians and their senior staff who now hold cushy, plum appointments in fossil fuel corporations and PR firms advising big fossil fuel corporations. It is disgusting, it is corrupt and it needs to end.

That's what it will take for this parliament to actually start passing legislation that will potentially save billions of lives this century. That is what it will take for this parliament to start passing legislation to ensure that we stop approving new coal and gas mines, that we stop clear-felling our native forests and that we stop publicly subsidising the burning of fossil fuels in this country. That is what it will take for this parliament to pass legislation that will mean that we're not going to face billions of people being displaced from their homes around the world, mostly poor, brown and black skinned people from the global south. That's what it would take to make sure this parliament fulfils its responsibility not just to everyone in Australia and around the planet now but to our children, our grandchildren and their children and grandchildren.

That's what it will take, but we're a long way from that happening as we stand here and debate this legislation. The proof of that is the fact that we are standing here and debating this legislation, which is simply a barefaced scam designed to deliver for Santos. That's what we're doing here today. Sometime this week—possibly even sometime later today—the bells are going to go and we're going to find out who in this chamber is prepared to sit on the side of this beautiful planet that supports all human life, on the side of the complex, awe-inspiring ecosystems and ecological processes that support all life on this planet and on the side of unborn children, their unborn children and their unborn grandchildren. And we're going to find who's going to sit on the side of the ecocidal fossil fuel corporations.

Here's what's going to happen, folks: the major party politicians, the Coles and Woolworths of Australian politics, are going to sit with the ayes and pass this bill. There will be a small number of people—and I proudly let you all know that that will include every single Australian Greens senator—on the other side of the chamber voting no to this despicable piece of legislation. In voting no we will be standing up for the future, we will be standing up for a safe planet and we will be standing up for future generations.

The people who will sit on this side will find themselves on the wrong side of history soon enough—mark my words. But today they're going to come in here—and they are in here right now—and do the bidding of big fossil fuel: the gas cartel and the fossil fuel corporations. Many of them do it to feather their own nests. Maybe Senator Chisholm is going to roll back out into the Santos boardroom. Who knows? We know where he came from—from Santos to the Senate. The list is a mile long, of major party politicians who've been spat out the revolving door and into plum, cushy jobs, cooking the planet. That's what they do, because that's just how politics in this country rolls. It is corrupt. It is shameful. It is disgusting. It is disgraceful.

So I say to folks: When the bushfires are burning, as they are right now, when people are dying, as they are right now in Australia, in early November, folks, we ain't seen nothing yet. When people are dying, when they're losing their homes, when their insurance premiums are skyrocketing, when hundreds of thousands of people around the world, soon to be millions—soon potentially to be billions—are being displaced from their homes or dying of thirst or dying of starvation or dying from drowning in floods or dying of burning in fires, don't say you weren't told what's causing it and don't say you didn't know the role you played in this unfolding disaster we are living through.

Our climate is breaking down. Our biodiversity is crumbling around us. The natural ecosystems that support all life on this planet are flickering and starting to collapse. And what are we doing in this place? The bidding of the big corporations, those ecocidal corporations, with the psychopaths in their boardrooms who are running them, who are prepared to put the pursuit of the almighty profit above the future of human life on this planet. That's what the major parties in here are doing the bidding of today, and that is what we will be proudly voting against when the bells go for the second reading on this debate. Someone has to stand up for future generations. Someone has to stand up for this beautiful planet that we live on. Someone has to stand up to this planet's capacity to support all life, including all human life.