Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (16:52): What a pleasure to follow Senator Hanson, who has made a sensible, rational contribution to this debate, like my colleague Senator Brockman earlier. It's pleasing to see some rationality and common sense coming into this whole debate. The Turnbull government is focused on keeping the lights on and getting more affordable power to Australian households and businesses. Senator Hanson has just indicated how many people and businesses cannot afford to use electricity because of the cost of power, particularly in my home state of Queensland. Why? It is because the Queensland Labor government own the generators, and, for years, they've been gouging the price—adding to the price—to try and prop up their budget. 'Forget about the households or the small businesses. We need to try and balance our budget.' They've chased any other investment away from Queensland, so that's why power prices are so high in Queensland. Our approach is driven by engineering and economics, not by ideology. It brings together the advice of the very best experts in the field, whereas from the Greens you get all the mantra, ideology and stuff they've read in left-wing papers around the world. It doesn't make any sense. They can never argue the case. They don't understand the issue. They just mouth the rhetoric and put that out as policy. The Turnbull government has adopted the National Energy Guarantee, which is a practical, workable, pro-market policy to increase the affordability and reliability of our energy system whilst also meeting our international commitments. I have to remind everyone: Australia is one of the few countries—under Liberal governments, I might add—that has actually met its target from Kyoto and previous targets from Paris. We do that without subsidies. There are no subsidies, no taxes and no emissions trading schemes. The Turnbull government is focusing on this because the provision of affordable power is so important to every mum and dad and every household right throughout Australia, but more particularly so in my home state of Queensland. You've heard the Greens in this debate and elsewhere talk about how these carbon emissions are destroying the world and destroying the Great Barrier Reef. I keep asking a question, and none of them will ever tell me the answer, because they can't. The question is: how come Australia's share of the world's emissions, 1.2 per cent—keep that figure in your mind—is going to change the whole climate of the world? In fact, when I questioned the Chief Scientist, Dr Finkel, about that and asked, 'If we stopped our emissions by 1.2 per cent, which is everything in Australia, what difference would that make to the changing climate of the world?' his answer was, 'Virtually none.' Senator Williams has done some research into this with the help of the Parliamentary Library. He has shown me figures, and the Parliamentary Library has got them, where new power stations in China alone— Senator Williams: Coal-fired power stations. Senator IAN MACDONALD: Coal-fired power stations; thank you, Senator Williams. New ones—these are not existing ones—have a carbon emission of something above 2,000. Senator Williams: It is 670 million tonnes. Senator IAN MACDONALD: It is 670 million tonnes. But, in units, it's somewhere around 2,300, I think. Australia, just to keep these figures in mind, has 73. These are new, coal-fired, emission-generating units. In China alone, they are above 2,000; in Australia, we are under 100. Yet the Greens are saying: 'This is what we've got to do in Australia. We've got to shut business down and export jobs overseas.' They say we've got to do all this so we get a warm, fuzzy feeling and so we can go to the green international conference somewhere around the world and say, 'Oh, look, Australia's cut its emissions by 50 per cent.' The Labor Party, unfortunately, have fallen for that gag as well. It will mean nothing to the changing climate of the world. Don't take my word for it; ask Dr Finkel. It will mean absolutely nothing if we cut it by 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 50 per cent or, according to Dr Finkel, 100 per cent, and yet the Greens would ruin every manufacturing-job-creating exercise in Australia. That's why they're so opposed to the Adani project. The Adani project won't, in any material way, export carbon, and what it does will have absolutely no impact on the changing climate of the world—absolutely none. But it will create jobs in Queensland—particularly up my way—it will create wealth in Queensland, and it will enable the Queensland government, whoever's in power after Saturday, to almost pay their bills, because of the royalties that will come in from the mining of this clean, abundant, natural coal we have not far from where I live. It's waiting there to be tapped. When it's tapped, it won't impact upon the changing climate of the world and will certainly not have any impact on the Great Barrier Reef. But it will create jobs. It will provide electricity for the starving millions in India—but that doesn't seem to be a concern of the Greens in this particular debate. I say to the Greens: please explain. I keep asking them. I've been doing this for, I think, 10 years now, when this issue of climate change first came up. I've been asking the Greens to explain to me: if Australia—which emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions—cuts its emissions by 50 per cent, how is that going to change the changing climate of the world? None of them will ever answer me. Why? Because there isn't an answer. Or there is an answer, but Dr Finkel has given it; Dr Finkel said it won't make any difference whatsoever. But it does make a difference to people I know—people up in Townsville who desperately need the jobs and who desperately need the work from Adani. For the small businesses that run off that—the accommodation, the houses and restaurants and all of those people that will benefit from the Adani project—it means big things to them. So I plead with the Greens: give me an answer. I keep asking them. Senator Roberts, when he was here, used to keep asking them, but they always ignored that. They go on about how horrible we are, how we don't understand, how the latte set in Sydney think we are all troglodytes—yes, thanks to the Greens' propaganda. But give me an answer to that. Australia, I keep repeating, emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. China each year—or week, was it? I forget what it is, but let's say each year—exudes more carbon with its new power stations—not the old ones, the new ones—than Australia has been emitting for years. I say to the Greens: how come it's okay for China? How come it's okay for India? How come it's okay for Russia? They're all okay, but poor little old Australia emits practically nothing, makes no impact on the changing climate of the world, and yet the Greens political party—and Labor, I'm sorry, have gone along with them—think there are a few votes in it from the ignorant latte set around the leafy suburbs of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Those people might vote for the Greens and the Labor Party. The Labor Party and Greens keep fighting each other for that cohort of votes. But ask any of the people at the latte place next time you go there, Senator Rice—ask them how is it that Australia's emissions are somehow going to destroy the Great Barrier Reef? I'd ask you to ask that. They'll just open up the Green Left Weekly and read out the propaganda that pops out of the paper, but none of them will understand it. None of them will ever be able to argue the case. Sure, if the rest of the world stop their carbon emissions, so should Australia; I've never challenged that proposition. But, until they do, why does Australia destroy itself and the jobs of its people and its standard of living for a meaningless ideological, warm-feeling approach for the latte set in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane? This is a debate which I think more and more Australians are starting to understand is just ideological claptrap from the Greens, regrettably being now mirrored by the Labor Party as they fight for Greens votes. (Time expired)