Today there were a lot of important questions asked of the government. It’s a day where they’ve announced a huge deal with the Greens party to establish a massive new carbon tax on job-creating projects in this country, but unfortunately there were no answers given to these very important questions.
This dodgy deal that has been done between Labor and the Greens potentially means that all new coal, gas and other mining projects will be required to have all of their emissions offset. That means they’ll have to buy carbon credits for all of their emissions. Previously, the government announced they’d only have to buy offsets for the amount of emissions they’re reducing—five per cent a year. Now it won’t be five per cent next year; it’ll be 100 per cent for these projects next year.
There is a new mine being built in my area, in Central Queensland, near Moranbah, the Olive Downs mine, and I asked about that particular mine. The acting leader of the Labor Party in the Senate couldn’t even tell the 500 people who are working there tonight, who will be going to sleep in a camp away from their families tonight, whether they have a job tonight.
Those opposite claim they’re the party representing workers, they claim they represent the people who go to work to help this country be strong, and they can’t even give them basic answers. They haven’t done basic analysis. Maybe the people responding to this motion could provide these answers to workers in this country? Can they provide them answers? Will this Olive Downs mine have to offset 100 per cent of its emissions? And if it has, what analysis, what consultation have they done with the mine to know whether those people will have their jobs or lose their jobs overnight? What have they done?
According to Mr Bandt, the Leader of the Australian Greens, who seems to be in charge in this place right now—
Senator Ciccone: He’s in charge?
Senator CANAVAN: Yes, it’s been confirmed he’s in charge. He’s in charge of the government. Hardly anyone voted for Mr Bandt in this country, but he’s in charge of this place. He’s giving more detail than the Labor government at the moment, but he says that one of these projects, the Beetaloo gas field, will be required, from day one, to offset all of its emissions in scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 for domestic use.
I particularly want to remind people what that last bit means, ‘scope 3 for domestic use’. Scope 3 emissions are the use of the gas, so when you use the gas or the coal and you burn it to create energy and electricity—more than half the world’s energy still comes from those sources—that’s scope 3 emissions. The deal that the Labor Party have done with the Greens would tax, would penalise, the use of coal and gas in Australia—for domestic use; that’s what Mr Bandt said. If you send the coal and gas over to Japan, Korea or China, they’re tax free—tax free. How absurd is this, that we’re going to penalise the use of our own energy for our own purposes but not other countries’?
With this deal that’s been announced between Labor and the Greens today, it’s a bit like Game of Thrones: winter is coming. And unfortunately, if this deal goes through this place, it’s going to be a long, cold, dark winter—many winters to come—in this country, because we’re not going to have enough energy for our own use. There are not going to be the gas projects or the coal projects that we need to keep the lights on in this country. We know and the government knows, from the Australian Energy Market Operator, that we are facing massive gas shortages in the next few years. We have a huge problem that the Bass Strait is declining as an oil- and gas-producing field. We need to replace it with new projects, like Narrabri in New South Wales and like, hopefully, the Beetaloo in the Northern Territory. The Greens want to stop it. We know that. But that is going to mean that people have to pay massive amounts for their power. If you think your power bill’s bad now, wait until we stop all new coal and gas projects in this country. We still need coal and gas for more than 70 per cent of our electricity needs. Wait until we stop all those and then see what real pain looks like in your power prices. We’ll be paying what they’re paying in the UK and Europe—in Germany—before you know it, and that will hurt poor people in this nation.
The Australian Labor Party is an absolute embarrassment, that they cannot answer questions right now about the impact of these policies. These policies will mean that more than a million Australians who rely on the mining sector for their jobs now face uncertainty. And keep in mind that it’s not just coal and gas. It’s also lithium mines, nickel mines and copper mines. They’re all captured by the safeguard mechanism, too. They use a lot of diesel. Senator Sterle knows this. They don’t have a lot of electricity in some of these parts of Australia. They have to use diesel, and they’re captured. So, why would we put restraints on mining the very resources we need in order to have batteries, wind turbines and all this other stuff? How stupid are we? They’re going to put a massive constraint, basically a big stop sign, on nickel mines, lithium mines—the stuff they claim they want to power the world. This is going to be an absolute disaster in this country, and every power price rise and every blackout is on the heads of Greens and Labor parties who are in charge in this place.
