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

Labor's decision to pump $1½ billion of public money into a petrochemical hub at Darwin's Middle Arm is actually a middle finger to the people of this country. It's a middle finger to everyone who wants climate action. It's a middle finger to young Australians, who are going to inherit the worst impacts of the climate calamity that is currently being driven in this country by the Australian Labor Party.

Middle Arm, the middle finger to Australians, shows where Labor's true priorities lie. They are doubling down on the fossil fuel corporations, doubling down on publicly subsidising the burning of fossil fuels and doubling down on taxpayer handouts to bolster the already obscene profits that fossil fuel corporations are making in Australia. The decision to publicly fund Middle Arm is reckless and morally indefensible. Labor is propping up a dying industry and sacrificing the future of all Australians for short-term profits and short-term political benefit.

The duplicity of Labor MPs is nothing short of staggering. They post Canva graphics on social media. They cluck their tongues about how they hate their party's climate-destroying policies. They pose with koalas. They mouth platitudes about protecting the environment. They pretend to care about the climate calamity and they pretend to be taking climate action. But, when push comes to shove, they turn up in this place and they vote for the very policies they claim, on social media, that they oppose, and they smile while they're doing it. Those Labor MPs want us to believe they're different—that they're allies of the climate movements—but their actions tell the real story.

By backing Middle Arm, they are complicit in cooking the planet. They are contemptuous and they should be held in contempt by every Australian. They are doing nothing other than serving their fossil fuel donors and betraying young people, who are going to bear the brunt of their sellout.