Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday the new Labor government handed down its first budget. This budget had some very welcome measures, such as the measures of our natural disaster relief and changes to paid parental leave. But there was also $40 million in fossil fuel subsidies, $1.5 billion for a toxic petrochemical plant in Middle Arm in the Darwin harbour, and $2 billion for new gas projects.

In their first budget, the Labor government have shown they are no better than the previous government for their love of dirty fossil fuel projects. Believe it or not, we are in a climate crisis. This year alone we've seen floods in Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, with the ACT and the Northern Territory on high alert. This is in fact the whole country that is being affected by the climate emergency. These have been some of the worst recorded floods we've seen in our history, with some areas on the east coast like Lismore having been flooded multiple times. Researchers have confirmed that climate change is making this worse. This is what climate change looks like, and, with the Labor government continuing to put money into fossil fuel projects and opening up new land and waters for exploration, approving new projects or allowing for any more expansion to these, it's only going to get worse. You can't put the fire out while you're pouring more fuel onto it.

This government is moving away from coal, ever so slowly, which is a welcome move, but it needs to happen faster. More importantly, it cannot be replaced with a reliance on gas. The previous government very misleadingly marketed their gas-led recovery during COVID as climate action. Gas is a fossil fuel. Gas is just as dirty as coal. Moving away from coal to gas is in fact not climate action.

Recently the parliament passed Labor's Climate Change Bill to legislate their 43 per cent emissions reduction target. The opening or expansion of one fossil fuel project will blow this target. We know that carbon capture and storage has not yet been proven to work at the scale needed to justify opening up these new projects, despite fossil fuel companies continually claiming they will in fact be able to offset their emissions with these projects.

At some point, we need to say: 'Enough. No more new coal and gas.' The Greens believe it's time, as do the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, our brothers and sisters in the Pacific Islands, and thousands of people who consistently protested against the opening of new fossil fuel projects and the lack of substantive climate action. At what point will the major parties finally join the rest of us? Will it be once the fossil fuel corporations have destroyed our whole country and drawn out every drop of oil and every gram of coal? Or will it be when they don't have any more money left to donate to the major parties? Let's be honest; since 2012, both the major parties have accepted over $8.2 million from coal, gas and oil companies. In return those companies get grants, exemptions and approvals. The major parties are too scared to take the real climate action needed because they might lose some precious money. So they do the bidding of these fossil fuel companies and then roll out of parliament and into high-paid jobs with the same companies. This is state capture. The major parties, and therefore the government, are captured by the fossil fuel companies and their interests, not those of the public.

We simply cannot let the market dictate when it's time to move on from fossil fuels. These companies will do whatever they can to line their pockets. We've heard Minister Husic, a minister from the National Cabinet of the current government, talk about 'Team Greed or Team Australia'. He knows, and we know, that these companies don't care about us. They don't care about our planet. They don't care about the traditional owners' land and sea country they are destroying. They don't care about the farmers' lands they are inhabiting. All they care about is their profit.

Right now there are 114 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline. If these are allowed to continue we will see more flooding, more fires, more droughts and more storms. The weather will become increasingly unpredictable and unruly. This will impact on our food supply chains. Our crops will get too much water or not enough. Generational farmers who have worked so hard to bring us the products we know and love will see yields decrease. Small farming communities will be devastated. Areas will become unliveable because they're either too hot or underwater.

Right across Australia, and indeed the world, life as we know it will become impossible. The Beetaloo project alone will increase Australia's 2020 emissions by 13 per cent. The Barossa gas field used some of the dirtiest gas in the world. Scarborough's annual emissions will be the equivalent of 15 coal power stations. They're all climate bombs that the government can't justify setting off, because this is just one of the 114 projects currently in the pipeline.

One of these projects alone is enough to blow the government's 43 per cent emissions reduction target and our commitments under the Paris Agreement. If all of these projects go ahead, our emissions will rise by a third. Beyond the destruction that Labor's position of continuing to open up new coal and gas projects will cause to our climate, it will also destroy the environment. These projects will put unique species—found nowhere else in the world—at risk. They will threaten birds, mammals big and small, reptiles and other animals that call Australia home.

Offshore projects will also put our pristine coastlines, our reefs, our marine parks and our giant kelp forests at risk both directly, through the risk of spills and disruption from noise and lights, and indirectly from the rising acidity of the ocean that we are seeing as the climate changes. These changes are disrupting migration patterns, breeding cycles and the delicate balance of nature that's given rise to the immense diversity we see on this planet. That is all at risk, and, indeed, much of it has already gone. Further, every single coal, gas and oil project, either currently operating or in the pipeline, is on unceded lands.

Many, like the vast majority of these projects, don't have free, prior and informed consent. You've heard me talk about this many times here in this chamber. The relevant traditional owners will tell you that they don't provide that consent or that it's manufactured, and we saw this in the recent Tiwi case. Some of these companies don't even consider consulting the traditional owners as being necessary, because they're not seen as relevant people. Since colonisation, First Nations cultural heritage has been under threat. We have lost sacred sites that hold hundreds of generations of knowledge and spirit.

My heart breaks every time I have to see footage of the Juukan caves. Even worse, it doesn't seem like we've learnt from these disasters, as more cultural sites are under threat. Take, for example, the Murujuga rock art. It's the oldest in the world, and it's currently under threat. What I want you mob to understand is that you seriously need to consider whether you're willing to throw away this history and cultural heritage that we as a nation should be proud of. We should be rushing to protect it—instead of placing it under threat just to appease a mining company. We know this is happening right across this country. First Nations people are having their cultural heritage stolen, sold off and destroyed by this mining companies.

I want you to ask yourselves: 'Is this really the legacy I want to leave here in the parliament?' You could send a clear message to us First Nations people across the country that you respect our voices, our cultural heritage, by refusing any of these projects to continue. You can do that today, and you can do that without a referendum.

Approving these 114 projects has so many implications, and it's the social licence for these companies that is rapidly dwindling. The government needs to listen to the people they're supposed to be representing and not a handful of fossil fuel companies. But the government will do everything in their power to make sure that they can keep destroying our climate, our environment, our First Nations cultural heritage and our way of life in this country.

The failure of this and previous governments to listen to the science—in fact, we saw no investment in science in this budget—will impact on each and every one of us, and we will continue to remind them that we will not stand by and allow this to happen without a fight.