This is the first time the Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water has had to come into this place and say something political, but his heart is not in it, which is why he had to read eight pages. This is the introduction of Minister Koperberg to the culture of the Labor Party: Labor members stand in this place and waste the time of the House by speaking about political matters that focus on anything but a State issue that is of concern to the people of New South Wales.

This is the first time the Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water has had to come into this place and say something political, but his heart is not in it, which is why he had to read eight pages. This is the introduction of Minister Koperberg to the culture of the Labor Party: Labor members stand in this place and waste the time of the House by speaking about political matters that focus on anything but a State issue that is of concern to the people of New South Wales.
 
Every single motion the Government introduces to be accorded priority condemns the Federal Government. The Minister correctly said that I spoke on this matter a year ago. On 6 June 2006 I ruled out a nuclear reactor in New South Wales. I said it would not happen under a Liberal-Nationals government. I spoke on this matter many times between 6 June and 22 November 2006.
 
Napping Neville, the former member for Tweed, asked me a question on 22 November 2006. Where is he? The former member who asked me a question was Napping Neville. I made the point that in the previous six months I had said so many times that we had ruled out a nuclear power that he must have slept through the whole thing. We have moved from Napping Neville to Fumbling Phil, who has asked the question again: Are we going to rule out nuclear power? How many times have we done it?
 
Let us look at some real issues in the State that the Government is trying to cover up. I refer to the speech I made on 22 November 2006, in which I reiterated that there would be no nuclear energy in New South Wales. I said: I do not know how many times over the past few months I have stated that we will rule out nuclear energy?

There will simply be no nuclear energy in New South Wales under the Liberal and National parties. That has been placed on record I do not know how many times over the past few months.

But I made the point that this was really about climate change. I said that I could understand the Prime Minister's frustration in dealing with States who were not taking action on climate change.
 
Now, here we are after the election and the crazy member for Bathurst is supporting his crazy Premier, who is about to spend more than $2 billion on a desalination plant. What did Bob Carr call the desalination plant? He called it "bottled electricity". Let us hear those opposite defend that when talking about climate change! Those opposite introduce motions that pretend that John Howard is some sort of punching bag for their entertainment because they do not want to talk about State issues.

I mentioned the desalination plant—$2 billion of taxpayers' funds is the worst case of environmental vandalism the State has ever seen. Yet the Minister has the hide to stand in this place and talk about climate change—but, I admit, only because he has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the culture of the Labor Party, which says, "Your job as a Minister is to get into this House in the afternoon, waste time talking about a Federal issue and be a complete hypocrite."
 
Let us talk about the desalination plant. Let us talk about pollution. Sydney has the worst pollution levels of any city in Australia, and there are a couple of reasons for that. A few years ago the Government released clean air targets, but then it discarded them because it could not take action to do anything about them. People are dying in New South Wales because of this Government's failures.

Mr Nathan Rees: Oh, for God's sake!

Mr PETER DEBNAM: The Minister obviously has not read about this. He is a new member but as a former chief of staff to a Minister perhaps he came across the information. He should read the health report that was published by the upper House in November. It places very clearly on the public record the size of the problem that exists in New South Wales, which includes health problems dating from pollution that has not been addressed over the past 12 years. That is the point I made on 22 November when I invited the Government to consider the report and suggested that, if the Government wanted to do something about pollution, perhaps alternative fuels should be considered. Who put ethanol and alternative fuels on the agenda?

Mr Gerard Martin: We did.

Mr PETER DEBNAM: But only months after Andrew Stoner and I had put it on the agenda. Who converted his car to run on 85 per cent ethanol in June last year? Was it the biggest Telstra shareholder? No, it was not; it was Peter Debnam. Who put ethanol on the agenda in New South Wales last year? The Coalition did and was able to do so because, over 12 years, the Government had done nothing about it. That is why I said on 22 November that months earlier the Leader of The Nationals, the member for Ballina, Coalition members and I had ruled out nuclear energy.
 
Because the Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water, Phil Koperberg, has a dagger to his back, he tries to waste the time of this House. If he wants to talk about power stations in this State, let us talk about the directions paper or the white paper that his Government refused to circulate two years ago. There is a crisis in this State in the electricity sector because the industry has no idea of the direction the Government will take.

The Premier, despite the fact that the people of New South Wales slapped him in the face last year when he tried to sell off Snowy Hydro Limited, has decided to privatise Snowy Hydro. The Premier also is considering privatising electricity retailers, despite having stated prior to the most recent State election that he would not do so. The wholesale price of electricity is increasing. There is a very deep suspicion that the prices are being driven up by New South Wales generators, at the call of the New South Wales Treasury, because the Government is calling on $150 million in dividends from the electricity sector over the next few years to try to dig itself out of a budget deficit.

I have outlined some of the issues that the Government should be debating in this Chamber instead of trying to waste time on stimulating debate about what the Prime Minister is doing—something that will not result in Government action in the short term. The other issue that the Government should deal with is the baseload generator. What does the Government intend to do about that? Everybody is waiting to find out what the Government will do about an additional baseload generator that is very much needed in the next term or two of Parliament. Will it be publicly funded? Will it be privately funded? If it is privately funded, what changes will the Government make in the market to stimulate investment? That is what everybody wants to know.

If the Government wants to debate electricity, let us have a full day's debate because nothing could be more relevant to the people of New South Wales than that this Labor Government appears to be driving up the price of electricity in this State. The Government has refused to put out a directions paper on where the electricity sector is heading. For 12 years this State Labor Government failed to address climate change, think globally and act locally. Instead, Government members come into this Chamber and play games.
 
As I said at the outset, the motion has been moved by the Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water, who is also the member for Blue Mountains. The member who put a similar motion previously to cause embarrassment to the Coalition and the Prime Minister was the former member for Tweed. The new member for Tweed, Geoff Provest, is doing a fantastic job for his constituency. My advice to the new member for Blue Mountains is not to go the same way as the former member for Tweed. He should stand up for his principles and resist the sleazy culture of the Labor Party. He should not let the Labor Party twist his arm, write his speeches for him and stand him up at the point of a dagger to read them.