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

A couple of weeks ago, at the end of the last sitting fortnight, a group of pro-coal Labor MPs outed themselves with a mock gotcha set-up that didn't fool too many political insiders. The ringleaders of the so-called Otis group seemed pretty comfortable with the message getting out there. Here, in 2020, in the face of a climate emergency, there's an organised group in the federal parliamentary ALP that is unashamedly pro-coal. There has been little, if any, denying or recanting by those named in the story—from which I can only assume that the story that was run by Peter van Onselen was pretty accurate.

What I want to talk about today is: just who is the Otis group? A number of members of the Otis group do represent coalmining electorates—chief among them being the member for Hunter. I might disagree—in fact, I do—with their political response to the structural decline of thermal coal and counsel them against selling false hope to their electorates, but I can see their logic—flawed though it may be. But these Labor members and senators, who by sheer geography can be linked to coal, don't of themselves explain the Otis group. What is perhaps most curious about the Otis group is the prominence of members and senators aligned to the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association—the 'Shoppies'. Let's go through the list. Senator Ciccone is a Shoppie; Senator Polley, a Shoppie; Senator Kitching, well, perhaps an honorary Shoppie by virtue of factional prowess; and of course Senator Farrell is probably the senior Shoppie in this parliament. From the House: Mr Mulino, a Shoppie; Mr Champion, a Shoppie; Ms Rishworth, a Shoppie; Mr Gosling, a Shoppie; and Anthony Burke, a so-called Mod, which is a new factional grouping Guy Rundle has described as 'quantum Shoppies, existing in two factional states simultaneously'.

By my count, that's nearly half of the pro-coal group of ALP parliamentarians who are Shoppies. A number of these Shoppies come from places like South Australia, the Northern Territory and my home state of Tasmania, where the coal industry is either quite small or non-existent. How very, very curious—not from coalmining unions, not from coalmining states but with the numbers in a pro-coal faction. The Otis group could easily be known as the new National Civic Council. What on earth are these Labor members, who've found themselves in the parliament because of their affiliation with a union that represents retail workers, doing spruiking for coal?

I've spoken previously on the political-industrial complex that is the SDA—how consistently they've acted as a handbrake on progressive politics within not only the Australian Labor Party but, by extension, our country itself. As the keepers of the flame for the religious extremism of Bob Santamaria, it's been the Shoppies who have so often and for so long held Labor back on social issues. Witness the final vote on the marriage equality bill in this parliament, on the back of a clear result of a nationwide plebiscite less than three years ago and after railroading Labor national conference after national conference on the issue. There, standing against progress, standing alongside prejudice, were a good number of Shoppies, voting no to marriage equality—parliamentarians aligned with a union that's been so close to the corporates that the Fair Work Commission found that they'd struck an agreement that left 500,000 Coles workers worse off than if there'd been no agreement at all. Senator Abetz once described Joe de Bruyn, the National President of the SDA, as:

… a role model of trade union officialdom. He is the type of official that gives trade unionism a good name.

Well, I'm here to tell you that if you're a trade union official and you've got Senator Eric Abetz's endorsement, you are in a whole lot of trouble!

But I've got to ask those members and senators who are Shoppies: of what benefit is hugging coal to the hundreds and thousands of people, many of them kids, who are members of the SDA and who gave the SDA the power to put those very members and senators here into the parliament? In other words, exactly what is the connection between retail and coal? I just can't see it.

What I do see is a malignancy within the factional system upon which the modern Australian Labor Party is built. Not content with having used their factional power to suppress social progress and to protect the dominance of the big corporate retail sector in this country, the Shoppies are now using their factional power to put a handbrake on climate action. What I see is that, as a bloc, the Shoppies are signalling to the coal barons that they are their friends in this place—that they are Senator Canavan's and Mr Joyce's equivalents inside the Australian Labor Party. What I see is not members and senators guided by some deeper philosophy heading for the light on the hill but simply a power base that is roving around looking for the next industry group to leverage off. What I see in the Otis group is—yet again to the detriment of this country—a demonstration that, for the Shoppies, it's all about the numbers.

I also want to turn to another matter: Minister Dutton's comments yesterday about terrorism. It's worth giving those comments some context. Both Minister Dutton and his government have pursued a racist agenda which has given strength and comfort to Neo-Nazis and Nazis in this country. This is the minister in charge of Australia's racist and punitive offshore detention system—

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: the senator is making a reflection on members of the other place. I'm not going to repeat it. He should withdraw. He reflected on Peter Dutton in an adverse way. It is clearly against the standing orders. He should withdraw.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, on reflection are you prepared to withdraw your comments?

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

If I reflected personally on the minister, I withdraw. But what I will say is this: this government and the Liberal-National Party have pursued a racist agenda which has given strength and comfort to Neo-Nazis and Nazis in this country. They have run a racist and punitive offshore detention system, a deliberately cruel and torturous regime that has killed and damaged so many—

Senator McGrath interjecting—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGrath, can I remind you that under the standing orders interjections across the chamber are disorderly. Whether you agree or disagree with Senator McKim's contribution, he must be heard in silence.

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

The government and the LNP have run a racist and punitive offshore detention system, a deliberately cruel and torturous regime that has killed and deliberately harmed countless people. But none of those people who were killed and harmed have got white skin.

Senator McGrath interjecting—

They've all got black or brown skin, Senator McGrath. You belong to a racist party.

Senator McGrath interjecting—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim and Senator McGrath: when I call the chamber to order, I expect you to respect the chair. Those sorts of contributions—there's other places and other times to have your debates. It is inappropriate to be screaming across the chamber at each other. Senator McKim has the right to be heard in silence.

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

This is a government that has been deporting First Nations people from their own country, and continues this very day to lawfully detain some First Nations people in immigration detention centres in Australia. We have seen Minister Dutton conducting a dishonest scare campaign against African Australians, claiming that people were too scared to go out to dinner in Melbourne in the face of so-called Sudanese gangs, even when Victoria Police were publicly saying that there are no Sudanese gangs in Melbourne. This is a minister that boycotted the apology to the Stolen Generation. This is a minister who continually and consistently attempts to undermine the rule of law by increasing his capricious powers as minister at the expense of those of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This is a minister who shares a party room with Mr Christensen, who went on a Neo-Nazi podcast and proudly addressed a Reclaim Australia rally. This is a minister who serves under a Prime Minister who told his shadow cabinet colleagues in 2011 that they should demonise Muslims for political gain. Let's remind ourselves that it is not two years since Neo-Nazis tried to take over an entire branch of the National Party in New South Wales. The LNP is riddled with right-wing extremists, and they give comfort and succour to Nazis and Neo-Nazis in this country. Minister Dutton's false equivalence—

Senator McGrath interjecting—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGrath: for the third time, I'm going to remind you of the standing orders. The interjections are disorderly. I have asked you to respect the right of the senator who has the call to make his contribution and be heard in silence. If you can't do that, perhaps you may want to leave the chamber.

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

We need to remind ourselves it's not two years since Neo-Nazis tried to take over an entire branch of the National Party in New South Wales. The Liberal and National parties in this country are riddled with right-wing extremists, some of whom sit in this place and the other place in this parliament, and they give comfort and succour to Nazis and Neo-Nazis in this country.

Minister Dutton's false equivalence and equivocation around the very real threat of right-wing terror cannot hide his shameful record or the shameful record of the party that he represents in this parliament.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I remind senators in the chamber that each senator deserves to have the opportunity to make their contribution in silence. Disorderly conduct won't be appreciated by the chair, and I don't want to remind you, Senator McGrath, again. Thank you, Senator Van.

David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition leader's recent flutter at climate change this past week is the ALP's weakest attempt yet to insert itself into a debate that has left Labor lost in space. Let me be clear: setting targets is important. Setting ambitious targets may be noble, but setting up arbitrary targets without a clue on how to achieve them is complete folly.

In December 2015 the countries of the world met in Paris and agreed to fix emissions reduction targets in a coordinated global effort to ward off catastrophic climate change. The Paris agreement was hailed as a major breakthrough, with signatory countries signing off on what they felt they could legitimately do. This was a rare act of global agreement done in a spirit of cooperation. It should be noted that signatories still have over 10 years to go to reach their self-defined targets.

Some countries, such as Australia, will meet their targets early, while others may not meet theirs at all. Those that meet them early may elect to reset their targets or just continue the policy settings adopted such that reductions will continue to accrue. The expectation is that signatory countries will meet their targets, though there is no guarantee they all will. If all or most meet their targets as agreed, we should keep warming to below two degrees. The efforts cannot and should not stop there, yet there is currently no international framework to address what happens post-2030.

There is a need to consider new policy settings that address continued emissions reduction and carbon abatement beyond 2030. The ambition of nations at COP26, in Glasgow later this year, should be to assess what signatories to Paris have achieved to date and to negotiate further reductions if countries are looking likely to beat their current targets. The challenge for Glasgow is that the renewable technologies required to drive further reductions, in the most part, do not exist yet or, at best, are nascent. To reach the levels of emissions that some are preaching for are all but impossible, unless technologies are used that allow us to do the impossible.

The key difficulty in continuing to cut emissions post-2030 is that by then all the easy gains will have been taken. Energy generation, one of the largest contributors to emissions, will have reached peak renewable in most countries in the near term. There will be some legacy coal-fire generation that should only come offline at the end of its productive life. Sadly, for the most part, a glut of low-cost renewable power will have made coal generation economically unviable in many places. However, this will only happen if other means of providing firm power are found. That is policy challenge No. 1: getting an energy mix that is at once reliable, cheap and with low or no emissions.

As you would have seen from our announcements on Snowy Hydro 2.0, pumped hydro is the ideal use of excess cheap, intermittent power to provide replacement firmness, but there are probably not sufficient geographically suitable sites to build enough hydro to service all jurisdictions. Batteries may provide some of the solution at the micro level, but the cost and efficiency must improve and end-of-life issues must be addressed. They are unlikely to ever provide what is known as grid-scale firming.

Natural gas is the logical fuel to create firming services that will allow wind and solar to make their contribution. However, some state governments, like the one in my home state of Victoria, are strangling the supply of gas. Until the economy-killing gas moratoriums are abandoned, the potential for gas to substantially lower emissions is effectively stillborn. These state-killing moratoria must be lifted immediately.

Looking at future technologies, hydrogen is often spoken about as a solution here. It may well be, but current projections are that the year will be at least 2030 before we even see any hydrogen coming into the market. Hydrogen fuel capability for either energy or transport is at least a decade away, let alone being commercially viable. The key logistical challenge will be the distribution of hydrogen as a fuel, which could possibly mean that, while technology to use hydrogen will be available by 2030, the infrastructure to enable it could take a further 10 years.

Australia is leading the way with its emissions reductions with the achievement of beating our Kyoto targets by 411 million tonnes. That's 80 per cent of a year's emissions. We've done this way ahead of track. Not many other nations can claim that. As a nation, we will be in a much better position to look at further reductions than almost all Paris signatories—that is, actual reductions, not ambit claims.

There is only one feasible way to guarantee greater reductions in Australia's emissions, and that is by using a proven technology, like many of our peer countries are currently using, which is nuclear power. If we want to be serious about reducing emissions, nuclear energy needs to be in the energy mix. The Greens' refrain is that it isn't safe, clean, timely, economic or practical. Closer examination of these shows this refrain is simply histrionics.

It's safe. Nuclear kills far fewer people than solar or wind, and these numbers are easily found. Gen III+ and Gen IV small modular reactors—SMRs—are safe, especially when sited in geologically stable regions, like much of Australia. Obviously, nuclear produces zero carbon from production. After all, this is what seems to be the point of Labor's 2050 goal. Spent fuel can be managed safely within modern technology and good planning, so fearmongering about waste is pointless.

It could also be timely. The technology required to produce nuclear energy is existing technology. That means we can purchase reactor technology that has been proven to work elsewhere. Yes, we still need to clear the appropriate regulatory hurdles, and those will still need to be set. We need to consult widely with Australians and make sure that they come on this journey with us, and then reactors need to be built. But this can be done in a timely manner.

The economics are very, very interesting. Given that current nuclear technologies are small modular reactors, they are cheaper and faster to build, have long life spans and have high output, so the economics of nuclear power stacks up over whole of life.

Policymakers need to continue the good work done so far in reaching our 2030 targets. There is no other way for Australia to achieve larger emissions reductions in the foreseeable future other than through nuclear energy. I challenge all those in this place: you cannot claim to be passionate about our planet and about reducing emissions without looking at nuclear energy as a power source. It's not possible. You cannot wish emissions away. That is just a dream. It's a pipedream that people use as a political stunt, particularly in this place, as we saw just before. To do anything, you must take practical, meaningful actions, and that leads us to nuclear power. We need to foster the innovation, the skills and the capability within this nation, and our universities are well placed to do that. That allows us to tackle the spectre of the over-the-radar emissions, as I call them—those post-2030. That's where we need to get to next—not 2050 but 2030.