Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

They keep running and running to Mr Dutton and Mr Joyce, to the Liberal Party and the National Party, and they say: 'Keep us alive! Keep our business going—business as usual. Burn more coal. Burn more gas. Drill for more gas. Drill for more oil. Pollute, pollute, pollute.' They do this because they want to keep on making more money and they don't want Australian households being able to pay less for their power by having solar panels and batteries for storage.

The Liberal and National parties hate renewable energy because they hate Australians getting cheap power. They want to make sure that fossil fuel industries, the coal and gas corporations, keep making profit. That's what's going on here, at the cost of our environment and our planet. In the last fortnight, we have seen the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, say that he would dump Australia's climate targets, like Donald Trump, and that we would pull out of the Paris Agreement, like Donald Trump, and he followed this up by saying that instead of renewable energy, which is safe, clean and cheap, he wants radioactive, toxic nuclear power reactors across the country. He won't say how much it's going to cost Australians—billions and billions of dollars. He won't say what he'll do with the waste. He's going to dump it in South Australia's back yard. That is where it'll go, and every South Australian should know this—that the Liberal Party in South Australia are selling them out. There will be at least one big nuclear reactor—maybe more—at huge cost to the taxpayer, and then we're going to have to carry everybody's toxic waste as well.

The Liberal and National parties in Australia are so backwards. They are doing the dirty work for the fossil fuel industry. I know there are lots of memes going around. There are lots of jokes about Peter Dutton and Homer Simpson. I think Mr Dutton is more like Mr Burns, frankly: sinister and dangerous. But this is serious business. Our climate is at boiling point, Australians are struggling with the cost of living, and all Mr Dutton can offer is a dangerous, toxic plan that will hike up prices and put a wrecking ball through climate action. There is not a renewable energy project that the mob on that side of the chamber, on the Liberal and National side, don't hate. They don't want you getting power cheaper. They don't want Australians being able to take control of their own energy. They want to control it. They want all the money flowing to the big corporations.

Let's call a spade a spade. This whole toxic nuclear ploy of Mr Dutton's is to allow the coal and gas industries to keep going for longer, with more coal and gas mines, more pollution, more money for the corporations and more expensive power bills paid for by the Australian people, paid for by the next generation and the generation after that. Our climate is in crisis. We can't waste another 10 or 20 years when our climate is already suffering. Young Australians know this. Older Australians know this. Every thinking Australian knows this. Mr Dutton is fooling no-one. He is fooling no-one.

The question will be: will the Labor Party and the government stand up and call this out for what it really is: an excuse to keep burning coal and using gas for longer? That will drive the climate crisis to be even worse. It will drive power bills up. It will fuel the bushfires next summer. It will make the floods worse next time around. It will make the drought worse. Australians know that we have to change business as usual. They want cheap power that is clean and green. They want to be able to see a government and a parliament that takes climate change and the suffering of the environment seriously because they care about the future their kids are going to have in 10, 20, 30 and 40 years time. Australians are smart people, and Mr Dutton is treating them like mugs.