ADJOURNMENT

Ms WATSON-BROWN (Ryan) (12:58): 'Now is not the time to talk about climate change.' That's what the Prime Minister said in response to the climate fuelled tragedy in Nepal. These events are a climate warning. Climate change is exacting a terrible, tragic price.

The people of Nepal are responsible for a vanishingly small amount of the emissions that have caused this tragedy, yet they are the ones who are paying the heart-wrenching, devastating cost. While the Prime Minister was in the Pacific recently, talking up Australia's climate credentials, the Minister for Resources was cutting the ribbon on the Beetaloo basin gas fracking project—yet another Labor approved climate bomb.

Just days later, the Labor government waved through yet another coalmining expansion in Queensland, the 37th new fossil fuel project approved by Labor. So when is it okay to talk about climate change? Is it when the next glacier melts and sweeps away an entire town?

Is it when Brisbane experiences another one-in-a-100-year flood? Is it when bushfires set New South Wales on fire again? This is what 30 years of kicking the can down the road looks like.

Labor knows exactly what the opening of new coal and gas projects is doing to our climate and environment, but they approve them anyway. They are approvals of fossil fuel projects that directly contribute to disasters; they have contributed to the deaths of thousands of innocent people in just the last few weeks. The United Nations warned last week that the coming El Nino is expected to be the strongest since records began.

We are six days out of winter and, in Queensland, there are fires burning in the Lockyer Valley. We wake up to bushfire warnings on the morning radio. A new report from the Climate Council revealed that a conservative estimate of sea-level rise puts 250,000 Australian homes at risk by 2100.

That's over $850 billion in damages by the end of the century. This is the price of approving new coal and gas mines, and that price isn't paid by politicians. It's paid by everyday people.

So when is it okay to talk about climate change? Do we have to wait until yet another Australian resources minister retires from politics and goes on to work for a fossil fuel company? The environment, the climate and everyday Australians deserve a government that puts them ahead of the obscene profits of fossil fuel companies, like Santos and Woodside.

Can we just tax gas companies already? We know that more than half of the gas Australia exports is given away for free, with zero royalties or PRRT paid by gas companies. We know that a 25 per cent tax on gas exports would raise $17 billion every year.

We know that a 25 per cent tax on gas would encourage gas companies to sell to the domestic market first and at a lower cost. A gas export tax solves all of these problems at once. But, instead of imposing a holistic 25 per cent tax on gas companies, the Labor government announced they would require gas companies to reserve 25 per cent of their supply for the domestic market.

But we don't have a gas supply problem; we have a gas export problem. Now they're watering down that already watered down policy. All they're going to require gas companies to do is simply supply up to 25 per cent of their supply for the domestic market.

Companies can already supply up to 100 per cent of their gas to the domestic market if they want. But why would they when they're making absolutely obscene profits exporting our gas for free? Can we just tax gas companies already?