Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not my second first speech but, nonetheless, I rise to speak on the Coal-Fired Funding Prohibition Bill 2017, which is a Greens bill that would stop public money going to coal-fired power.

It's hard to believe we're having this debate in this day and age, when the science of climate change is abundantly clear and when the price of renewables and the ability of renewables to meet our power needs are beyond reproach. Yet here we have a government that claim to be free marketeers, when it suits them, and they want to give public money to prop up coal-fired power. They either want to build it themselves, as many of my Queensland colleagues have been pushing to do, or they want to refurbish old clunkers, which should be retired and replaced with clean energy.

We Greens have come to this place with a bill to say no public money for coal-fired power. It is past the time—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speak quickly, before it's gagged!

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Leyonhjelm, can you bring Senator Macdonald to order, please?

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have the call, Senator Waters.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. As I was saying, this bill would stop public money going to coal. They've got their hand out all the time—this industry already receives many billions of dollars every year in freebies. They get cheap diesel fuel, they get accelerated depreciation and they get a whole raft of other tax perks, which get up to about $5 billion or $6 billion depending on how you slice and dice the figures.

When you compare that to the donations that the coal and gas industries make to the big political parties, it's a very telling story. There's been $3.7 million given by the fossil fuel sector to Labor, to the Liberals and to the Nationals over a period of three years to 2016. What do they get for that money? They get all of their approvals, no questions asked. There has never been a coalmine or coal seam gas field rejected by either side of politics when they've been in government. And, in fact, they get all of these fossil fuel subsidies back. It's a pretty good return on investment; for every dollar that the fossil fuel industry donates to the big parties they get back $2,000 in subsidies. It's a pretty cushy deal.

It's a wonder, then, that they've got their hand out for even more support. They want more support through the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund for someone to build the railway for the largest proposed coalmine in the world, by Adani, and now they've got their hand out to prop up coal-fired power stations—and the government is champing at the bit to give them public money. This bill would prohibit the government from doing so. This bill shamelessly says: no money for coal-fired power stations, no money for refurbishments. Let's use some of that money to transition those communities so that we've got long-term, sustainable local economies that support those workers and communities, and let's get behind clean energy.

We can't buck world economics. It is perfectly clear that coal is on the way out, just as it is clear that coal is killing people. It is killing our reef. We've lost 50 per cent of our coral cover in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area already. Coal is killing people with its toxic emissions when burnt. The coal industry is already heading towards automation, and people are losing their jobs. If we want to create jobs, protect the climate and save our reef then renewables are the way to go. It is perfectly clear to us. I am really proud to be speaking in support of this Greens bill, and I would urge both sides of politics to return their fossil fuel donations and vote for job creation and clean energy with the science and with the community. I won't be holding my breath, though, because we saw our new Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, when Treasurer, brandish a lump of coal and tell us all there was nothing to worry about. I think the latest national climate policy is: 'Let's pray for rain.' I am not a religious person myself, but I won't be betting the house on prayer being the answer to climate change. With all due respect to the Prime Minister, I think the Australian community deserves slightly more from a climate policy than praying for rain.

We've seen the politics of climate change continue to roll out. We now have a new Prime Minister. The former Prime Minister got dumped for espousing Tony Abbott's targets. It's sort of ironic that the targets that then Prime Minister Tony Abbott signed this nation up to, which are woefully inadequate, were seen to be too tight and too tough on the fossil fuel industry such that then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was rolled and our current Prime Minister—who has abandoned the National Energy Guarantee altogether and who has said that emissions are a distant priority and that bringing down power prices is the main priority—was installed. I've got a suggestion for the Prime Minister: you can fix electricity prices; why don't you just re-regulate them? You're the Prime Minister. You've got the numbers, or may soon have the numbers—well, maybe not so much in Wentworth—or perhaps you won't be in government anymore. The point is that this parliament has the ability to re-regulate power prices.

So, rather than pointing the finger and giving public money to try and prop up coal, this government should do its job, regulate to reduce power prices and invest in clean energy. That will set us up for the future. It will protect what's left of our precious Great Barrier Reef. It will help safeguard us from the devastating extreme weather events that are wreaking havoc on our communities and wreaking absolute havoc on our regional neighbours. We know that renewables are cheaper. We know they will bring down the cost of power. We know we can transition those communities onto clean energy. We know we don't want the hypocrisy of this government, which claims to back the free market but wants to give handouts to the coal industry.

It is my great pleasure to be speaking in support of this bill. For the sake of future generations—and for our regional neighbours who are starting to drown and for whom the saltwater incursion on their food-producing land is a serious problem—I call on both sides of politics to support this bill.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I begin, I welcome Senator Waters back to the chamber for the resumption of her term. Before I turn to the substance of the Coal-Fired Power Funding Prohibition Bill 2017, I want to make one brief observation about the debate and the process on the previous bill, the Animal Export Legislation Amendment (Ending Long-haul Live Sheep Exports) Bill 2018, that the chamber just considered. If there is one positive thing to come from the passage of that bill and the way in which it was passed, I hope it will be that it brings to an end the pious sanctimony that we often hear from the crossbench, from the Greens and from the Labor Party about the gagging of debates in this chamber—about bringing debates to an end so that a vote can be held—because not once, not twice but three times this chamber was gagged. Senators were prevented from making a contribution on the bill. In a debate that lasted no more than one hour this morning, when there was a long speaking list, with many senators who wished to make contributions, they were cut short. In the committee stage of the bill, only one senator was allowed to make a contribution, when there were many others who wished to. So I'm sure we'll never again hear from the Greens, the Labor Party or the crossbench, if another bill is ever gagged in this chamber, any complaints at all about process, truncating debate or getting on with the business of the chamber. I look forward to them consistently upholding the standard which they have displayed here this morning on this bill.

Turning to the actual bill before us now, in a sense I was pleasantly surprised when I heard about this private member's bill from the Greens today because I thought it was quite novel. It is a red-letter day. We have found an area of government spending that the Greens don't like. Normally the Greens are all for government spending and subsidies. They love nothing more than collecting tax from the Australian people—it would be as much of it as possible, if we allowed them to—and then them 'wisely' disbursing that tax in the form of grants, handouts and subsidies to their favoured friends in their favoured industries. But we have found at least one area in which they think it is not a good idea to do that. I'm hoping that that, again, is progress from the Greens. I hope we will see them apply this standard consistently across the board to other areas. If they are so concerned about subsidies, as Senator Waters seemed to be in her contribution to the debate, maybe we'll see them extend this logic to other areas of subsidies. Perhaps they might even turn that logic to the renewable energy industry and the generous billions of dollars of subsidies it's received over the years from this place.

I found Senator Waters' contribution on the question of donations to be particularly ironic. Senator Waters' contention is that fossil fuel industries have benefited from the political process by supporting political parties and then receiving taxpayer handouts. Well, if they ever have, the renewable energy industry has learnt very wisely from them. It has followed them very closely and emulated their behaviour, including, by the way, with generous donations to the Greens. The renewable energy industry is among the many generous supporters of the Greens political party, and we have here in the chamber today the Greens advocating a position that is substantially to the interest of the renewable energy industry. If we follow the logic deployed by Senator Waters in her contribution to this debate, there must be something sinister going on there, there must be some kind of connection between the financial support of the renewable energy industry—all the donations they make, all the functions they attend and all the support they give to the Greens party—and the position the Greens advocate in this chamber and, in fact, the billions of dollars of taxpayers' money that the Greens political party advocates handing out to the renewable energy industry.

My view is that it would be best if we subsidised no forms of energy, if we allowed all forms of energy to equally compete on a level playing field. Unfortunately, in the last decade of climate policy and energy policy in this country, that has not been the case. The renewable energy industry in particular has done exceptionally well out of taxpayers and exceptionally well out of favourable regulation, which has aided its growth immeasurably.

There is nothing, though, to fear for the Greens or anyone else watching this debate from the ACCC recommendations made to the government which the government has signalled that it will proceed with. One ACCC recommendation in particular is that, given the disaster of climate policy and energy policy over the last decade in this country, it is necessary for the government to intervene to assist the creation of new dispatchable energy in the market. What the ACCC recommends, in a technology-neutral and technology-agnostic way, is that government underwrite the creation of new dispatchable energy. The ACCC doesn't specify what form the energy should take. It doesn't say that this energy should be coal fired, gas fired, nuclear, wind, solar or geothermal. It just says that new dispatchable power, power that is available when it is needed and when it is demanded—and we sadly know the intermittent nature of renewable energy means that until it can be sufficiently firmed with back-up batteries or other supports it is not dispatchable—does need to be created in Australia. It needs to be created because Australians like to know that, when they flick the light switch, the lights will come on. They do like to know that, when they hit the power button on the aircon, it will come on. They do want to know that their computer, TV, fridge, microwave and radio will work when they switch the power on. But, without new dispatchable power generation being brought into the market, they can't be assured that that will be the case, let alone be assured that they'll be able to do so in an affordable way. We have heard loud and clear from many Australians the way in which they are struggling with rising energy prices. They are absolutely laser-like in their focus, as we need to be in ours, on getting those prices down.

Why is it that in the last decade no new coal-fired power station has been built in Australia? 2007 is the last year in which one was built. The reason is not that a new high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power station is uneconomic; in fact, they are very competitive on price terms. The reason is not that people are unwilling to, or uninterested in, building one of these coal-fired power stations, which would lower the cost of electricity, provide electricity on a reliable basis and, at the same time, have the benefit of producing lower emissions compared to existing coal-fired power stations. The reason no-one has built one is that if you are an investor in this industry and you are contemplating building a coal-fired power station—or, indeed, any power station—you need to generate a return on investment over a 10- to 15-year investment horizon. You can't just invest for three, four or five years; you need to have confidence that your investment will be able to be returned on a long time horizon, because there are very high capital costs involved. If you are an investor in this industry and you are contemplating your investment in a coal-fired power station, you have to take into account not just the policy settings of today but the likely policy settings of the future. If you were able to be sure that the policy settings of today would stay in place in perpetuity, then you would invest with confidence and know you would get a good return on your investment, on your outlay of capital.

However, if, like me, you fear that one day in that 10- to 15-year time horizon there may be another Labor government, or even another Labor government that relies on the support of the Greens in order to form government or in order to transact any business in this chamber, then you'll be thinking: 'Oh-oh, the coal-fired power station that I might be willing to build—or the gas-fired power station or whatever style of power station I might be willing to build—might be hit by a carbon tax, might be hit by an emissions trading scheme, might be hit by an emissions intensity scheme, might be hit by some other scheme for which they will come up with a different name but will have the same effect.' Your investment will be damaged by a future Labor-Greens government. People in business, people who invest in this industry, people who provide capital in this industry, prudently and wisely are holding back.

What the ACCC recommendation helps us do is overcome that political risk. It helps us to overcome that regulatory risk. It says to the investors in those industries: 'You can invest with confidence. Even if there is a change of government, your investment will be secure.' And I think that is a really important and appropriate signal that we need to send to the market.

My friend the learned Senator McKim from Tasmania has been interjecting throughout this debate about how renewables are cheaper. Well, if it were the case it would be a wonderful thing. There would be no need for a renewable energy target. There would be no need for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. There would be no need for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. In fact, I am sure that the Greens, with their new principled opposition to taxpayer subsidies as enunciated in this debate, would be the first to stand up and say we can get rid of all these subsidies because renewables are so competitive in their own right they don't need any assistance at all. I look forward to them bringing that bill to the next private senators' time to be debated. I hope that it is because I'm sure that the Greens are being consistent not just favouring one form of energy over the other.

The truth is that the rest of the world is getting on with building high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power stations and other traditional fossil fuel powered power stations. They are building them because they are reliable, they are building them because they are cheap and they are building them because they reduce emissions over the existing stock that they are replacing. There are, I am advised, 400 new units being built in China alone, which are replacing old polluting plants, and they have plans for hundreds more. A recent IEA Clean Coal Centre report noted that China's embrace of high-efficiency, low-emissions technology had reduced its emissions footprint by 450 million tonnes of CO2 per annum. The Greens tell us that their priority is to reduce CO2 emissions, but, when provided with a viable way of doing so that is also reliable and cheap, for some reason they don't support it. Japan, which is a pioneer in the area of high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power stations already has plans to build an additional 45 coal plants. India has plans for 600 plants and there are plans for dozens of others across South-East Asia, including in Bangladesh and elsewhere.

Famously, even in the heart of Europe, even emissions-conscious Germany is building its own new low-emission coal plants, which have the great feature of being able to ramp up and ramp down relatively quickly to compensate for the intermittent nature of the renewable energy plants which they are also building. Uniquely in Germany the high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power stations that they are building are not just black coal power stations—and we have decent stores of black coal in this country, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. They are also building high-efficiency, low-emissions brown coal-fired power stations. We have hundreds of years of brown coal source in my home state of Victoria. We'd be very happy to see an energy industry investor enter the market to build a high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power station using brown coal in my home state of Victoria.

Colleagues, I think we should take this bill for what it is. It is the Greens adopting their usual ideological approach to energy; their obsession with renewables at the exclusion of all else; their obsession in the face of facts and evidence about the emissions reductions that high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power stations can deliver; and their obsession with, apparently, aiding an industry which has also been a generous political supporter of theirs, if we are to take them at their own words about what they believe the impacts of donations are on the policies of political parties in this place.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Coal-Fired Power Funding Prohibition Bill 2017 represents one of the extremes of the energy debate in this country. It expresses a kind of superstitious horror of fossil fuels in its desire to shut down all coal-fired power generators as soon as possible. I could take the Greens far more seriously when it comes to energy policy if they didn't have such an appalling track record. It's almost eight years now since they rejected the climate change policies of the Labor Party, which would have seen in place climate change policies which would have advanced this country dramatically from where we are at the moment.

Rarely does one bother to think about just how realistic their propositions are. This bill and the Greens represent one extreme in the energy debate. The other extreme is represented by the government, which has absolutely capitulated on the issue of climate change. It has done so because this Prime Minister is now bound hand and foot by the climate change denialists within his ranks. On the weekend, the Prime Minister announced the government had abandoned the National Energy Guarantee, the so-called NEG, and along with it any commitment to meet the cuts to carbon emissions which were required under the Paris carbon agreement.

We have these two extremes in the energy debate. They have one thing in common: they have elevated a sense of religion over science and fact. Of the two, the greater fault is the government's, because it has failed to deliver a coherent energy policy at any time in the last five years that it's been in office. It has failed to appreciate that what is needed for householders, for Australian industry and for the future of this nation is a comprehensive energy policy which allows us to deal with the fundamental facts in regard to the future of climate change and the need to ensure that we have sufficient energy to secure the future of our industries in this country.

Malcolm Turnbull, upon his removal, made it all very, very clear. I want to quote him directly. He said:

In terms of energy policy and climate policy, I think the truth is that the Coalition finds it very hard to get agreement on anything to do with emissions.

He said:

I mean the National Energy Guarantee was or is, a vitally piece of economic reform. It remains the Government's policy, of course.

And he said:

… the emissions policy, emissions issues and climate policy issues have the same problem within the Coalition of bitterly entrenched views that are actually sort of more ideological views, than views based as I say, in engineering and economics.

There he is, on his way out the door, expressing the view sharply, directly and unequivocally that the Liberal Party is simply not able to deal with these fundamental issues which are so important to the future of this nation. The government that's now in office has simply abandoned households, abandoned industry, deserted Australian industry and deserted blue-collar workers, and it thinks it's better to somehow or other pretend that the Australian people aren't interested in the issues around the future of this nation in regard to climate change.

Every business group in this country was supporting development in regard to the National Energy Guarantee. What was this government's response?

It was to run out some $9 million worth of TV advertisements with regard to their campaign, Powering Forward: A better energy future for Australia. That's their idea of an energy policy: run TV ads rather than deal with the big questions that actually confront the future of this nation.

When the new Prime Minister was Treasurer he assured us this energy guarantee would be delivered, but as Prime Minister he turned his back on it because he knew what the price was for securing the support of the Liberal Party party room, and that was that he had to capitulate to the knuckle draggers who actually run the Liberal Party—the knuckle draggers who don't want to face up to the fundamentals when it comes to the issues of climate change; the knuckle draggers who have plagued this government, as Mr Turnbull has said, and who are unable to come to terms with basic questions with regard to emissions and unable to come to terms with the ideological divisions within their ranks, rather than deal with the engineering, the science and the economics of climate change.

We saw that the new Treasurer, Mr Frydenberg—who had championed the NEG throughout recent months—told ABC Insiders how disappointed he was and that he'd been of the view that the policy was about walking away from what was practical. He referred to Mr Turnbull's remarks. He didn't actually quote him directly, because Mr Turnbull had belled the cat. He made it very clear that the Liberal Party is just not able to deal with this fundamental question. He said it was something to do with the parliament. But we all know the reality is this: within the Liberal Party itself, there is a group of extreme reactionaries who were not prepared to vote to support the position that their party room had on three occasions agreed should be the position of the government. They were not able to support that position on the floor of the House of Representatives. So we've got a new Prime Minister as a consequence. Mr Turnbull lost his position as the Leader of the Liberal Party for the second time on this question of the future of the Liberal Party's policy on climate change.

We have a new Prime Minister who says he's going to be more genuine and he's more sincere than the old Prime Minister. To quote Groucho Marx, 'In politics, sincerity is everything. Once you can fake that you've got it made.' That's clearly the case with this Prime Minister, because it won't be long before people wake up to the proposition that he's actually incapable of dealing with the issue of carbon emissions and that, as a consequence, he's not able to deal with the issue of the price of electricity, let alone the security of supply of electricity.

Mr Frydenberg is in the business of quoting famous people. On Insiders he said it was Bismarck who said, 'Politics is the art of the possible.' He's no fool, Mr Frydenberg, but he failed to articulate how we can ensure that households and businesses are able to have both reliability and affordability, and ensure that we have an effective response to climate change.

This is an admission of defeat by this government. A claim that this government is simply about reducing prices ahead of reducing carbon prices is an acknowledgement that the knuckle draggers within the Liberal Party have won. As a consequence of that, you can see why it is that so many moderates within the Liberal Party itself are walking away. They are simply not able to defend a Liberal Party position that doesn't sustain the view that they are in fact a liberal party, a progressive party—as Mr Turnbull said in his exit interview. It is why the business community is not likely to support this government, why the business community is not supporting this government and why it is that so many business groups are flocking to Labor—because they do know that it is possible to secure reliability, affordability and security in terms of dealing with the fundamental issues of climate change. They know that the party that can actually do that is the one that provides them with the security to invest in the future.

What we do know, of course, is that the Liberal Party is saying, 'We're in the business of looking forward,' with the prospect of saving as much of the furniture as they can. They're no longer actually in the business of trying to win an election; they're in the business of trying to secure as many of the seats that they currently hold when they face the electorate at some point. But, in the process, they've actually debased the whole proposition of what it is to be a conservative government. What they've sought to do is to argue a position while not being able to hold up any consistent policy when it comes to energy and not actually being able to articulate a case of how it is that we can look with any confidence towards the future.

And what's been the response from the moderates within the Liberal Party? Well, so far, what we've seen over the last fortnight since the change in the Prime Minister's position—and we've had no formal explanation, by the way, as to why it was that Mr Turnbull had to be removed—is the leaking of polling which showed that Mr Turnbull was on the verge of success. That was the first thing. Then, of course, we saw the leaking of the material out of the cabinet room that there was a massive infrastructure program which was about to be released and which would have secured a whole range of seats that otherwise were going to be lost. We had the leak in regard to the schools, with the deal that was to be done particularly with the Catholic schools. That would have been available, and therefore secured the future of the government.

Then, of course, we had the proposition about the energy payments that would be made to various disadvantaged groups. That was released twice, I might add. We saw the proposition that the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party was in fact offered to Mr Dutton. Then we had the arguments around the former deputy leader, Ms Bishop, who stood aside—about the way in which she was treated, the attitudes towards her, the various statements about the way she'd been mistreated and the flagrant assaults upon her character within those processes.

We have a Liberal Party that is fundamentally dysfunctional. There is chaos wherever you look, and yet we are told that somehow or other these issues will be brushed aside. Through a series of TV advertisements—$9 million worth—we're told that we'll be able to fix up all our problems and we should be confident that there'll be an answer to all our difficulties. When the new Minister for Energy was announced, Angus Taylor, straightaway we had Liberal Party figures expressing their views to the media that they were dismayed, if I can quote directly:

… dismayed at the direction of the Morrison administration’s energy policy and concerned at the appointment of Mr Taylor, who has campaigned against wind farms and renewable energy subsidies.

And:

A senior NSW government source said the federal Coalition’s avoidance of emissions reduction was "just putting off the inevitable".

So we've got a government that's essentially in the process of collapse as we now face the facts that they are seeking to avoid in the run-up to this next election.

What we do know is simply this: based on the government's own modelling, we were told that the National Energy Guarantee was a way in which we could bring together the broadest possible coalition of support that could provide security for future investment; that, it was argued by the government, could meet our international obligations; that could provide investment security, if we could get broad support across the parliament; and that could also reduce prices. In fact, it was said, according to the modelling by the Energy Security Board, that the NEG would deliver $500 savings per household, but that if it were not introduced—if it were not implemented—then there would be a cost to households of $300; it would actually lead to price rises of $300.

The Labor Party took the view that the government's position on the NEG was nowhere near ambitious enough, that we weren't able to meet our international obligations given that the targets were so low, and that's why we needed an orderly transition away from reliance on fossil fuels, but we had to do so by ensuring that the energy mix was able to be sustained in a realistic way but at the same time reduce our overall carbon emissions. We said that could be done, and we made the point on numerous occasions that Labor had always said—and I quote directly from Mr Shorten's remark—that there was a future for coal and that coal-fired power stations were going to be part of the energy mix for the foreseeable future. Labor said that we had a goal of 50 per cent reductions by 2030, and Mr Shorten indicated that they should not be engaged in 'expensive investment in new coal-powered stations beyond their technical operating life'.

We relied upon the Chief Scientist's emphatic proposition that emissions could steadily be reduced, and that would of course involve using various sources of alternative energy. Dr Finkel had produced a report for the COAG Energy Council and had demonstrated that it was possible to sustain future investment in such a way as to secure the future, particularly in regard to natural gas but also in regard to hydrogen. Now, the Greens don't particularly want to talk about natural gas, because that's a fossil fuel, and they certainly don't want to talk about hydrogen. Dr Finkel recently produced yet another report about the benefits of hydrogen as an export industry for this country. He argues that, unlike gas or petrol, where hydrogen is burned there are no carbon dioxide emissions, only water vapour, and renewable hydrogen can be produced either by electrolysis of water or by splitting molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. It can also be produced from brown coal, which is a proposition that we don't hear anything at all about from the Greens.

I think the extraction of hydrogen from fossil fuels does produce carbon dioxide emissions and therefore does require us to deal with the issues regarding carbon capture and storage. That's why I say, in regard to the consultation with industry stakeholders, particularly in manufacturing, that it is extremely important that, if we are to talk about the future of steelmaking, aluminium and aluminium refining, and the manufacture of cement and fertiliser, we need to understand that these consume vast amounts of energy. They employ hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Australians. They require a continuous power supply, which must be catered for into the future. That's of course a position that the Labor Party takes particular note of, but it is not a position that we hear sufficient weight given to. To destroy those industries would be nothing short of economic vandalism, not to mention the social consequences of destroying the communities that depend on them. I think that any advanced industrial country like Australia is entitled to see advocates come forward to defend those communities, and that's not what we're hearing from those at the end of this chamber or, frankly, from those on the other side of this chamber.

This bill does not acknowledge the importance of those communities to the future of this country. The former Prime Minister's reluctance to do anything more than give gas producers a slap on the wrist or for them to understand the significance of longer-term policy certainty to secure the future of our gas supplies or pricing arrangements for our manufacturing speaks volumes on the failure of this government. But the fundamental failure is highlighted by the former Prime Minister's acknowledgement, where he said that the issue in terms of the Liberal Party itself was:

In terms of energy policy and climate policy, I think the truth is that the Coalition finds it very hard to get agreement on anything to do with emissions. … I mean, the National Energy Guarantee was or is, a vitally piece of economic reform. It remains the Government's policy, of course.

Well, as of today, I understand that's no longer the case. It's no longer a vital piece of economic reform. We've gone back to a position where the knuckle draggers are now dominating yet another Prime Minister, and another Prime Minister is making exactly the same mistakes as his predecessor made. Mr Turnbull made a terrible error—that the mortgage for taking up the keys to the Lodge was that he would be dominated by the people who have no commitment to the future of this nation. As a consequence, we now have a situation where the emissions issue and the climate policy issue have the same problem within the coalition—bitterly entrenched views that are actually more ideological than based on, and I quote Mr Turnbull again, 'engineering and economics'. That's a fundamental failure of this government with regard to understanding the future of this nation. (Time expired)

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Coal-Fired Power Funding Prohibition Bill 2017. Many, many Australians are very confused when it comes to climate change and what they've been told. We have one side of politics and some scientists telling us the world is basically coming to an end and we're destroying ourselves, and then we have the other side of politics and other scientists saying, 'No, it's not.' Over a period of time I have seen this become a political football. It has been used by individuals, companies, multinationals and different ones to line their own pockets with business. That's what it has become—a business, at the cost of many Australians. It's going to cost us jobs. It's costing us livelihoods. It's putting a strain on many homes and families across our nation.

This issue has been taken up around the world. This is something that was started many years ago, even a couple of decades ago—when this was all put into place—and we're wearing the effects of it now. I speak to many companies and businesses who are actually struggling to pay their power bills. I speak to many families who have had a shock when they've opened up their power bill and found that it had more than doubled in a very short period of time. And yet we sit here and hear the Greens with their same old rhetoric—that if we don't do anything about this, the reef is going to die. Where is the evidence that the reef is actually dying? I have dived on the reef, and the coral does die, but that is a part of nature and has been happening for many, many years. The first time it was ever reported was around 1936. Climate change was not the issue then, nor was it spoken about at that time, but the coral was dying. It rebuilds itself within a year. This is due to the organisms of the coral itself.

They also say the water temperature is rising; it's heating, and that is killing our coral. How can they explain the fact that, if you go closer to the equator, the coral growing around Indonesia is thriving? It's not dying. The water temperatures are higher. This argument is being used as fearmongering to push their point. And they say the point is about coal—'Coal is killing it'—and that's why they're anti Adani opening up. Yet the Adani mine is 388 kilometres from the coast, and then from the coast it's about another 50 kilometres to the reef. I'd like to know how it's happening, because once the coal is dug out of the ground we're very stringent on how it's transported. It's all covered. Even going to the ports, it's all covered. We've had coalmining in this country for how long? Over a hundred years. We've still got a reef. The way they're talking you'd think the whole reef is about to die completely. This is being used as their ploy. There is no science to it whatsoever.

They say the government is a free marketeer and wants to subsidise the coal-fired power stations. If that is the case, it would be a loan from Efic, which will be repaid by any company that takes on building a new coal-fired power station—a new one!

We're debating about one new power station in this whole country, yet around the world 1,600 are being built now or are in process for the future—1,600! China is building around four a week. We've got countries like Poland building power stations, as are Japan and Germany—all these countries. Do you understand— (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.