Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's good to hear Senator Davey say she accepts climate change is real and supports solutions and that she believes agriculture should be part of the solution, because I totally agree. But I think we need to be realistic here. It's no reflection on you, Senator Davey, but you're part of a political party that, since I've been in this place for 13 years, has done nothing but undermine climate action—consistently undermine climate action. One of your colleagues here in the Senate, Senator Canavan, has been on the record—he covered his face with coal dust and put it on his social media—saying that he stands with coalminers. He's very proud of the stance he has taken on supporting dirty fossil fuel energy, which of course is one of the big parts of the problem that we have to solve—how we transition away from dirty fossil fuels. So you can't stand with farmers if you are part of a political party and a movement that is, in its DNA, totally opposed to climate action. I don't need to go through, for senators, all the actions we've seen in this place in the last decade to undermine climate action and transition of our economy, but it has been really sad to watch. We are seeing the weather and the climate change around us now.

This is just a small technical point for Senator Roberts: yes, CO2 is plant food; however, as you may know or as any student of botany from high school or university will tell you, the stomata, which take on the CO2 in the plants, will close to conserve water when it gets hot. This is just basic science. I know you don't accept science or facts and you never have, but I'm just telling you how plants actually work, Senator Roberts. On a hot day, they will shut. They won't take on CO2. That's just a little fact I thought you might want to be aware of.