Senator O'SULLIVAN (Queensland) (17:14): I can actually hear the frustration in Senator Di Natale's voice, and not just on this occasion; in fact, it's present in all of the Greens as they make contributions around coalmining. Their frustration is, of course, that they can't get anyone else to agree with them. Nine times out of 10, the majority of the Senate lets them sit over here, with their motions, where there is this lonely cohort of people—a very disciplined group, might I say, in supporting each other. I think it is intellectually offensive that nine people can vote the same way every time for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of votes—as we all know, from human nature, that's not possible. Their problem here is: the reason that their arguments don't resonate in the community is that they are simply based on false premises. We heard a very good contribution here the other day from Senator Williams, who happens to be in the chamber. It was a very good contribution. He laid it out as it is. He laid out the facts, laid them bare. If you were to compare his contribution to the Senate to the contribution just made by Senator Di Natale, Senator Di Natale would not have a single leg to stand on. Let's look at the impacts of what the Greens are having to say. They want to close down the entire coal industry in my home state of Queensland and, in fact, across the country—in fact, across the world; they'd be happy to do it across the world. Yet they have gone back to their offices now to work under the illumination of energy created by coal. It was overcast outside earlier, so solar wouldn't have been able to provide them with that energy. Of course, if the wind stops blowing, they'll be sitting there in the dark, which I don't think would necessarily be a bad thing for the nation. Nonetheless, the contributions by the Greens around these matters are hypocritical. We have got a Greens senator who had their Senate office refurbished, and it was reported publicly that nearly $200,000 was spent on a timber floor in their refurbished office—not a tofu floor; not an old, dry, compressed grass floor; not an old leaf floor; not an urban floor but a timber floor. Both the electorate and chambers like the Senate are alive to this complete nonsense expressed by the Greens, and that's why they can't get anywhere. They can't get their motions supported here. Their motions fail one after the other. I see three Greens senators here. My understanding of the polling is that only one of them will be here come a few months time. Senator Waters: You won't be here! Senator O'SULLIVAN: No, I'm not going to be here, but neither are you, and neither are you, Senator Hanson-Young. I suspect that Senator Hanson-Young will be ringing me up for a job. She can do a bit of back-burning on the farm; I'll have a bit of work for her there. She can catch a few possums so we can all get our protein levels up. The fact of the matter is the Greens can't get the electorate to support them. They can't get the electorate across the country to support them. They can't get the Senate to support them. In the electorate, certainly in my home state of Queensland, there is an absolute wake-up to them. They can't get the Supreme Court to support them, and there have been 12 actions—not one or two or three or four but 12 actions. Their problem is the fact that they are not an honest cohort of people. They are a dishonest political party. For example, the other day we heard Senator Waters talking about the ILUA. We know that the Wangan and Jagalingou people in Queensland voted—listen carefully; I'll give you a second to pick your pen up—294 to one to sign the ILUA for the operation of these mines in the Galilee Basin. But if you go to the Hansard for Senator Waters's contribution the other day, you'll hear a different expression on it. Her contribution to it indicated that the native title, the people of that area, did not support the development of the mine. They know what we know, they know what the Queensland electorate knows and they know what the national electorate knows—that the development of this mine and the movement of this coal will have zero impact on carbon emissions in the world. For the closing of the mine to have an impact, they would have to prove—and the proof, as presented by Senator Williams, is to the contrary—that these mines would stop, that these power generators overseas would stop. We know that is not true. What we do know is that they would rely on inferior coal that emits more carbon into the atmosphere than the high-quality coal that will come out of the Galilee and what already comes out of the Bowen Basin. The fact is that when colleagues from the Greens party make their contributions they really think that everyone is as dumb as dog-doo. They just sit there, listen to this persistent drone that comes into their ears and think, somehow, that if they say it often enough, if they make misrepresentations frequently enough, people will adopt it as being the truth. The electorate and the chamber haven't been tricked on this. One of the things that always amuses me with the contribution from the Greens is the fact that they ignore what might be the alternative for 186,000 jobs that rely either directly or indirectly on the coal industry and the 40,000 or 50,000 more that will come with the development of Galilee. Senator Whish-Wilson: No jobs on a dead planet! Senator O'SULLIVAN: 'Jobs on a dead planet,' I'll take that interjection. What they're going to do is take all the coalminers and close down Mackay, Rockhampton, Moura, Moranbah, Blackwater, Emerald—just close those towns down; just turns the lights off. The economic impact is not only on my home state and the nation but on all those hundreds of thousands of people. They'll have them polishing wind turbines. That's the alternative industry, these wind turbines. These are turbines made of steel that are smeltered from iron ore. There's an estimate—I don't have it in front of me; otherwise I'd quote it more precisely—that it takes about five years of generation before they've offset their own carbon footprint with respect to their structure. To anybody listening, sadly—I hope that most Australians have a life and are not sitting glued to a television set listening to the tripe that comes out of our colleagues here—all I ask them to do is this: go back over the contribution of Senator Waters or Senator Di Natale or Senator Whish-Wilson or any one of the clan and pick three facts that they've stated in their contributions. They could be today's contributions, yesterday's or those from a week ago. If you're having trouble, contact my office and I'll provide you with both their contribution, their statements of facts, and the science that they plead about so frequently. And you can do your own comparison. I'm not here to tell you what to think. I'll provide you with the facts and you can make your own decision. I promise you that you'll arrive at the same place as so many in this place and so many in the electorate have—that this is nonsense and hogwash. The problem is that their resistance to these matters, I believe, inhibits the ability for governments to properly engage in the debate around some of these issues and settle at some middle ground with respect to some of the policies—not just of the government but when and if, at some future time, the opposition takes government. So I urge people to watch and listen, and I urge them to be very careful. This tail over here, this tail of the Greens, is going to wag this Chihuahua over here if the Australian people make the mistake of putting them back in to govern this nation. I call on people to be very careful with how they apply their vote.