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

Woodside's North West Shelf project is one of Australia's oldest and dirtiest fossil fuel projects. It was due to be decommissioned in the next decade, but we found out today that the Western Australian government is poised to approve another 50-plus years of gas production on the North West Shelf, primarily to facilitate the Browse project—the biggest fossil fuel project in this nation's history. If that project were approved, not only would it drill precious Scott Reef and impact the biodiversity of Scott Reef, but it would be equivalent to more than 10 years—13 years, on the latest data—of national emissions in one project.

If I were to ask you, senators and Australians listening to this debate, what would be the one word you would use to describe a government approving a fossil fuel project of this magnitude in 2024, at a time less than a week from the last COP, the international get-together for discussing climate change? They've told us we've already passed 1½ degrees of warming—the Paris targets. What would you say if I were to tell you that a government would approve this for a fossil fuel project, for a big company—Woodside Petroleum and their North West Shelf partners? What word would you use to describe that? The word I would use is corruption. How could you describe it as anything but corruption—a corruption of our political process—that big corporations can capture governments because they donate to them and they threaten them and they bully them? It's a corruption of the truth and the science behind climate change that we would somehow have a government that would approve this project, flying in the face of all the evidence that we are told that we need to get out of fossil fuels and stop approving new fossil fuel projects. It's a corruption of trust in our institutions that people trust to make decisions in their best interests. It's a corruption of the livelihoods and health of future generations on this planet—in fact, of generations on this planet today.

We know that there are going to be massive costs coming down the line for not acting on climate. If the Western Australian government goes ahead and approves this project, we know that this federal government can stop it. Sense and reason have to prevail. But, unfortunately, we know that the Prime Minister last night killed any chance of getting proper environmental protection laws in this country, because big corporations were in his office bullying him not to do so. That's who Labor are today.

If you care about the environment and you want to protect the environment, you want action on climate change and you want to stop fossil fuel projects, the best thing you can do in the democracy we have today is vote for the Greens and any candidates who will stand up in this place and do what my colleagues are doing today and say, 'No more fossil fuel projects; we need to get on with dramatically and radically reducing emissions and transitioning to renewable energy.'

The fact that not a single Labor, Liberal or National senator in this debate today has even mentioned climate change is very, very telling. This argument that, somehow, we can't do it for economic reasons was the argument used against the abolition of slavery, and there are some really good parallels, because that's the cost of production—we need slave labour; our whole economy is dependent on it. They're saying the same thing about fossil fuels. It's immoral, and it's going to change at the next election.