Senator McKIM (Tasmania) (15:30): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Brandis) to a question without notice asked by Senator Di Natale today relating to renewable energy. This policy that we have seen from the government today is perilously close to a clinically insane policy. We know that Australians want more renewable energy. Poll after poll shows that Australians want more renewable energy, yet this announcement, on the face of it, sounds the death knell for the renewable energy target and sells out every single Australian who wants to see strong climate action and wants to see more renewable energy in the mix. It sells out those Australians. It sells the Great Barrier Reef down the drain. It sells the Murray-Darling Basin and its ecology, on which so many regional jobs depend, straight down the drain—flushed after the Great Barrier Reef. It's worth pointing out that as we stand here today the Great Barrier Reef is dying, there are horrendous wildfires burning in Portugal and—hello!—there's a tropical cyclone bearing down on Ireland. Yet this is the day, of all days, that the Prime Minister announces he is selling renewables down the drain and is going to hop straight into bed with his mates in the coal sector. Make no mistake, this government has not only sold out future generations; it has sold out our climate for a few months respite from the climate criminals like Tony Abbott on its backbench. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator McKim, I remind you to refer to members in the other place by their correct title. Senator McKIM: In that case, Deputy President, they've sold out to climate criminals like Mr Tony Abbott on their backbench. You have to ask yourself: how do those in this government sleep at night when they're selling the Great Barrier Reef down the drain and selling renewables down the drain with it? I've got an answer. I know how they sleep at night: on mattresses stuffed with hundred dollar bills donated by their mates in the coal industry. That's what this policy has delivered on today. It's delivered on the wishes of the coal industry in this country. It's payday today for the coal industry in Australia. The fossil fuel industry donates millions of dollars to the Labor and Liberal parties in every election cycle, and for that money they get policy outcomes from the Liberal-National party such as those we've seen today. The LNP don't care about future generations, because they want the economy to work for the big polluters and no-one else. They don't care, because young people actually don't matter to them. We see that in housing policy settings and private health insurance policy settings and we've had it confirmed again today—as if we needed it—in the government's energy policy announcement. They don't care about young people today and they don't care about young people into the future. If they did they would be announcing policies that drove a more rapid uptake of renewable energy, a more rapid transition out of coal-fired power in this country. But they don't do that, because they only care about their massive donors in the fossil fuel industry in this country and their post-parliamentary careers in the fossil fuel sector. This government is growing increasingly delusional. Those opposite are attacking Australia's biggest polluter, AGL, for not being pro coal enough. They are attacking Australia's biggest miners because they are moving away from coal. They're attacking the big banks because they don't want to risk their shareholders' money by investing in coal. This government has completely lost the plot. I am sorry to say that in this country energy policy is one of the major casualties of that losing of the plot. It is chopped and changed day to day. New thought bubbles are announced from week to week. Last week we had Tony Abbott sacrificing goats to volcanos, and this week we have Malcolm Turnbull asking, 'How high?' when Mr Abbott has told him to jump. Energy policy in this country is a disgrace and I apologise to future generations for the misery that announcements like today's are heaping on them. Question agreed to.