Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz just handed me this article that appeared in The Mercury in Hobart in 1991, where a gentleman by the name of Dr Bob Brown—do you remember him?—made some statements on what would be good for the environment. This is what it says: 'Coal fired power, best option.' Did you know Dr Brown back in 1991? Were you chaining yourself to the trees with Dr Brown back in 1991? Guess what? On this side of the chamber we want to continue to grow the economy strongly. We want to continue to create opportunity for people to get ahead. We want to ensure that across Australia we can have affordable and reliable access to competitive energy sources and, of course, coal will continue to play an important role, as will gas, as will renewable energy sources, but we need to ensure that it does not undermine our capacity to be competitive with other countries around the world. (Time expired)