Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to stand up and proudly support the 20,000 Australian men and women people who work in our fantastic oil and gas industry. They do very hard work on behalf of all of us. It is an incredibly difficult and risky endeavour for anyone to work at, especially on an offshore oil rig. They spend months away from their families, locked in a small area with their work colleagues. It's a risky job from time to time, and they deserve our support. They work for our nation. They work to keep us all going.

The Greens say that the oil and gas industry is a dirty industry. Well, it's dirty in the sense that those who work on an oil rig end up with grease and oil and mud all over them at the end of the day. They've got to have a shower at the end of the day. At the end of their work, they have to have a shower. All of you over there and me and all of us here have the liberty of showering before work, and it's a very easy life. Those people work really hard, and you have no idea of what they have to go through.

Not only do you have no idea about it—through you, Chair—but the Greens are absolute hypocrites, because I remember that only 18 months or so ago the Greens were in here supporting a bill which enforced—