Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

It's not snobbery to demand coherence. It is not snobbery to demand that the former prime minister, the beating intellectual heart of this so-called campaign, arranges words in sentences in a way that makes sense when it's such a critical national issue.

This is a big national project, and there are legitimate issues. But this campaign, this pretended interest, shouldn't be run by the mad old uncles at the barbecue, for whom the world is passing by on these questions, when what regional communities need and what the investment community needs is certainty, is a clear message from Canberra about these projects. The problem with this opposition is that, when they were sent a clear electoral message right around Australia—in city seats, in outer-suburban seats, in regional seats, in coastal seats, in urban seats—that their corrupted politics of climate politics and all the mad stuff was rejected overwhelmingly by the Australian people, that was an opportunity to take a breath and to act on the basis of the evidence and to act in the national interest. But, instead, when there was an opportunity, finally, for this ramshackle show to act in the national interest, it's all back to the silly stuff: it's back to Tony Abbott on climate; it's back to Scott Morrison on climate.

Let's take offshore wind. We've seen offshore wind off the Hunter Valley. We've seen offshore wind off Gippsland. These are big nation-building projects. And what's going on? Billboards with whales. It's absolute nonsense. It's made-up stuff and it's not even made up in Australia. If you're going to make up a campaign, make it up in Australia. Instead, it's imported, derivative nonsense from right-wing extremists overseas. Some of you who are sensible enough should recognise this for what it is. It's the capturing of a once-sensible, once-centrist political party by the extreme right and by social media memes. The problem is that, if you go on with this nonsense too long, you end up being captured by it—so once-sensible people get sillier and sillier and sillier, and you drift further and further and further to the Right.

This project in the Hunter Valley will employ 4,000 people during its construction—that's what one of the proponents tells us—and create 1,500 permanent jobs. It will supply vast quantities of low-cost power for households and for industry, and you've got Mr Dutton standing underneath billboards with pictures of whales on them! What garbage!

If people in one of these areas are worried about an offshore wind project that they won't be able to see, imagine how worried they're going to be when Mr Dutton finally announces his real solution: a nuclear power station in Port Stephens, in the Port of Newcastle, in Hervey Bay or in Gippsland! Name a place! Mr Dutton said three months ago, full of all the usual nonsense: 'We're going to announce it six weeks out from the budget. We're going to tell Australians where these magical nuclear power stations are going to be.' Now, Mr O'Brien is in witness protection—I've never seen him. And Mr Dutton says, 'We're going to tell you later.' Well, if Mr Dutton thinks he can tell Australians where these experimental nuclear power stations that will never deliver are going to be delivered—

I will take that interjection about submarines in a tic, because you lot should take your national security obligations seriously. You should take them seriously. But why aren't you honest with Australians about what passes for a plan? It's uncosted, it's not geographically specific and you're never going to tell people where the nuclear power station is going to be. Mr Dutton's plan requires dozens of experimental nuclear power stations all over the Australian coastline, and Australians are legitimately worried about this show that couldn't build any energy capacity in Australia. Four gigawatts went out over the last decade; one gigawatt went in—that was the contribution. And now Australians are expected to believe that this show—that couldn't build anything, that didn't build a power station, that moaned about coal-fired power stations closing and that had 14 of them announce closure on its watch—would somehow be capable of building a safe, workable nuclear power station in Port Stephens or Gippsland or Hervey Bay. That's the hypocrisy of this show. It is made up. It is uncosted. It is not real. It is partly a figment of their imagination and partly an outsourced, offshore, far-right political campaign that is about anything but the big issues that this country faces.

We are on the edge of the fastest growing region of the world in human history. We have opportunities and challenges. We have in this country vast resources and comparative advantage under the ground and above the ground in terms of our solar and wind resources, and our people. What would this show have the Australian people do? Put up with another decade of complete, hopeless inaction, of disinvestment, of capital running away to invest anywhere but in the Australian energy market? I'll tell you what: there's an alternative. This federal government, the Albanese government, has a strategy that it is implementing day after day, week after week.

I can tell you, as Assistant Minister for Trade, that when I go around the world I get two reactions. One is a giant sigh of relief from the investment community that the country is not run by the rabble opposite who debauched our electricity market so badly that capital just ran away; and the second is a very strong interest from around the world in the unfolding Future Made in Australia strategy, which will all be about this. It will be about making sure that we capture the opportunities for Australians—not in the inner city, because big factories aren't built in the inner city, but in the outer suburbs and the regions. If you want to stand in the way of national development, if you want to stand in the way of national infrastructure, and if you want to stand in the way of the national interest and the interest of regional Australians, be my guest. What this resolution shows is that you are not up to it, that you have not learned the lessons of the last election and that you are in no way interested in the interests of regional Australians.