On 10 Sep 2026, I gave a Speech on Climate Change
Transcript:
Ms WATSON-BROWN:
“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, a miniscule 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 coal mining 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 “once in a hundred 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.
Approvals of fossil fuel projects that directly contribute to disasters, 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 for by everyday people.
So when is it okay to talk about climate change?
Do we have to wait until yet another Australian resource 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% tax on gas exports would raise $17 billion each year.
And we know that a 25% 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 all at once.
But instead of imposing a holistic 25% tax on gas companies, the Labor Government announced they would require gas companies to reserve 20% of their supply for the domestic market.
But we don’t have a gas supply problem. We have a gas export problem.
Now, they are even watering down that already watered down policy. All they will require gas companies to do is supply “up to” 20% of their supply to the domestic market.
Companies can already supply “up to” 100% of their gas to the domestic market if they want. But why would they, when they are making obscene profits exporting our gas for free?
Can we just tax gas companies already?