Senator BOB BROWN (Leader of the Australian Greens) (4:20 PM) —In the few short minutes I have I simply want to say that Senator McEwen’s disappointing presentation, which was devoid of even-handedness and an informed position, was a poor reflection upon the government’s ability to take up the cogent arguments for a gross feed-in tariff which have led to its adoption not only in Germany but by France, China and potentially now Japan and all our competing nations in the world. At current rates, Australia will be the last left standing. One could wonder why it was that the National Party itself adopted at its recent national conference a motion in favour of a gross feed-in tariff for small solar and in favour of feed-in tariffs. It was a mystery to me. It is one of the recent great mysteries of Australian politics as to how the National Party could have adopted such a policy.

Senator Boswell —It is a mystery to me, too.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Forshaw)—Order! Senator Boswell, it is disorderly to interject, particularly when you are standing on the way out.

Senator BOB BROWN —As Senator Boswell disappears from the Senate so does the mystery. I have just listened to him—mystery solved. His speech would certainly end up convincing any conference in Australia that a gross feed-in tariff was a good thing. It was a hotchpotch of tired sayings, unreasonableness and, indeed, downright confusion and stupidity, which one does not expect to hear in an important debate like this in this place. Nevertheless, the former Senate leader for the ‘coal before country’ party put forward the view that the coal industry expects from the National Party these days.

Forget the country, forget renewable energies and forget climate change, which is bedevilling people right across this nation from coast to coast and which is already leading to a massive loss of jobs. Senator Boswell made a vacuous and unsupported statement, which was devoid of any backup argument, about losing jobs. We are seeing jobs lost in industries right across the world at the moment. He did not mention that the industry which he supports at the expense of rural jobs in this country—that is, the coal industry itself—has shed more than 10,000 jobs due to the recession in Australia.

He mentioned the Catholic Church and said that this gross feed-in tariff could cost $3 million by 2020. Of course, there was no supporting argument at all. Let me put a contrary argument. If the Catholic Church were to have a $3 million investment in the option that Senator Milne has put forward then maybe it will make $12 million by 2020 and, therefore, Senator Boswell is stopping the Catholic Church making $9 million. He wants the Catholic Church to be $9 million worse off by 2020. That is an argument that you could not substantiate unless you took Senator Boswell’s confused and silly point of view.

This is a serious matter. Senator Milne is to be congratulated for not only leading the discussion on this matter but having legislation which backs up a gross feed-in tariff for Australia. It is a way that will create many more jobs than the coal industry will ever do. It is a way forward with much less subsidy than the multibillion dollar per annum subsidy that the fossil fuel industries get at the moment. I cannot credit that we are having this debate on this matter with the Rudd government, which appears to have been voted in for, amongst other things, its policies on climate change. Yet it is a climate change denier when it comes to this gross feed-in tariff legislation, which would create jobs, promote industry and promote small business and would take us out of having to import everything in the renewable energy field, as we do at the moment. Congratulations to Senator Milne for leading the debate on this matter.