QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator STERLE (Western Australia) (15:07): I just want to make my contribution. It is far ranging, but I wanted to go to Senator Dean Smith's question, in which he was talking about household prices and electricity prices. I just want to remind everyone in this building, and everyone outside this building, that that side over there opposed every single position we put up to ease power prices in this nation—every single one of them in the last three years. 'Captain No No No' and all the little duty pawns over on that side couldn't wait to back in behind 'no, no, no'.
They wouldn't support energy bill relief for Australian households and businesses. They opposed every single one of them. We provided three rounds of energy bill relief to homes and small businesses to take the sting out of bills.
What did they do? They opposed. But I want to spend a bit of time—if you will indulge me, Mr Deputy President.
I've just had the privilege of returning to Australian shores, and it was very, very interesting to sit at the United Nations, proudly being part of the Australian contingent and watching our prime minister lead the charge over there on a number of issues, one of which was to try and reduce our emissions at a greater pace to get to 2035. I must say that I have never, ever spent a lot of time on making speeches in this place about climate change and that.
It's well known that I haven't—not that I don't believe in it, but I've had other things that I've been working on. But I sat there, and I had the privilege of meeting with the Kiribati delegation and the President of Kiribati, with the Prime Minister of Fiji and with the Prime Minister of Tonga and actually hearing from them about what the threat of climate change is.
I've not gone any further east than maybe the last street before you get to the park in Sydney where Parliament House is. I've never been in the Pacific; I admit that. But I listened to those people from these tiny little nations out there in the Pacific who said, 'No-one thinks about us.
No-one cares about us, but you have to understand'—this is what they were saying to me—'the threat of climate change to us.' The Kiribatis did it perfectly when they sat down to tell me that climate change has now wiped out all fresh water on every single island in that atoll—and there are many, many islands; it's a nation of about 130,000 people, but that's 130,000 lives.
It doesn't matter how many zeros. What is important is they care about their kids and their grandkids and the kids that are coming. Think about that.
They said, 'You have to understand, Senator, that when we were kids we played on the park that was watered by our wells. We all grew our vegetables and our fruit trees, and we watered our plants with hoses from our taps to then consume the vegetables.' They said, 'We have nothing like that anymore because of rising sea water and rising tides.' And I thought to myself, 'I sit in this bubble here in Canberra and we whinge because Qantas has just driven that airline into the ground.
Goodness me, my flight was late—wasn't that bad! Oh, my God, Senate estimates went to 11 o'clock.' Are we serious? Come on, people!
I'm not the spear chucker for climate change. In my 20 years here, no-one has accused me of taking that mantle and running with it every chance I got, but I've actually sat down with people whom it affects. I think it's about time we, as a grown-up and lucky nation, think about other parts of this planet that don't enjoy the luxuries that we enjoy.
They don't enjoy the First World problems we enjoy of our plane being late or the air conditioner in the car not working. The truth of the matter is that, whether we want to accept it or not—and I've seen it firsthand—there are millions and millions of people in this world affected by this. We have the recalcitrants on the other side, and I mean the real loopy right, who have just abandoned everything.
I don't mean the sensible ones sitting in here now; I mean the real loopy lunatics, in that row of six seats there—even though there are only four of them. I mean, seriously, people, get a grip. I had the privilege of hearing former US Secretary of State John Kerry talk about the oceans.
He opened something to me that I'd never heard before, and I've sat through the climate wars in here. For every second breath that every human takes in this nation, they can thank the oceans because 51 per cent of the oxygen comes from there and we're destroying much of it. (Time expired)