Anika Wells MP doorstop at Parliament House

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
CANBERRA
THURSDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: Morrison net zero failure, Scare campaigns on coal jobs.

WELLS: I’m Anika Wells, Federal Member for Lilley.

The government is staggering towards the due date of Australia’s worst group assignment. And the Prime Minister has revealed himself as the shoddiest group member. Every Australian has had to work on a project like this one, where they have had a person like the Prime Minister be nowhere to be found when the actual hard work is there to be done. But shows up at the end to take the credit and the mark.

And the stakes here are too high. Because there are some people who will expect, when the government finally rolls over on net zero, for Federal Labor to applaud. There will be some people who will expect that we should all applaud the Prime Minister for finally drawing to a close ten years of climate policy farce.

But I will not be applauding. Because as a Queenslander, I have witnessed ten years of these absolute charlatans lying to Queensland workers about our climate policies. Ten years of lying to Queensland workers and taking them for absolute fools.

Now this morning I got out my 2019 campaign scrapbook, which is not something that I do very often. But I thought it was important for us to remember what kind of campaign ad the LNP were running in Queensland about Labor’s policy for net zero by 2050 in the 2019 campaign.

“Labor’s war on mining jobs”, is what they said. “Labor’s plan to sack coal workers”. “You can’t trust Labor with Central Queensland jobs”. “Labor’s plan for your coal job”. And in quote “Queenslanders working in thermal coal mines should start reskilling now”. A negative ad. It should have been a government information ad.

This is the scare campaign that the Queensland LNP ran about net zero by 2050, in 2019. No wonder it is taking a while to turn the Queen Mary around. And these absolute charlatans, they are being dragged, in these final days, to finally doing the right thing. They have the audacity to try and squeeze Australian taxpayers for billions of dollars of incentives to finally do the right thing.

We can’t stand for it. And Queensland workers know better. They know better. Because this is now a question of who has the trust, the plan for a transition. Labor who believes the climate scientists, who trust the experts and who actually understands the gravity of the problem. Who has a plan about local manufacturing and renewables that will grow job opportunities in our regions. Or these charlatans, who are being dragged at the very last minute, in Australia’s worst group assignment, to try and get a pass. And it’s not good enough. Are there any questions?

REPORTER: So Queensland coal workers? Do they have any faith that they will still have a job, even if it is a different job, in ten years time?

WELLS: What the Queensland coal workers need is an actual discussion about what the transition looks like. Because it isn’t just the threat of their jobs going, as has been rammed home in campaign ads for 10 years. It is about the opportunities of renewables. Solar is now the cheapest electricity in the world. And reducing energy costs in Queensland means that more plants can get online. We have wind farms in Kingaroy. We have solar farms. We have farms that are generating cheaper electricity in Queensland and more opportunities in the regions because the Queensland Government invested $2billion in renewable industry in their last budget. The Queensland Government gets it. The Queensland Government are doing the heavy work on the ground. And the Queensland Government and Federal Labor have been up against these absolute charlatans and their scare campaign for 10 years.

REPORTER: Thankyou

WELLS: Thanks for playing. Have a good day.

ENDS