Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

This debate on climate change in the matter of public importance is not about action versus inaction, as has been presented by the member for Grayndler. It is not a debate about one side doing something and the other side doing nothing. It is a debate about the right way to deal with the real issue versus the wrong way to deal with the real issue. It is a debate about whether you take an approach which goes directly to the supply side and the source of emissions and targets pollution where it begins in an effective way or whether you take an approach—the wrong way—which goes to a petrol tax, a heating tax and things which rely on demand management and are forced, in a false way, on pensioners, farmers and low-income earners. This is what we are talking about—the Beazley petrol tax and the Beazley heating tax. These are real things which are going to hurt real Australians in a real way, but without even achieving the very thing that Labor wants.

It is also a debate about honesty. One of the things about honesty and competence is that you do not mislead the House. The member for Grayndler, only minutes ago, stood before this chamber and boasted about his great skills in research. I just want to hold up an article, ‘Ottawa’s new Kyoto plan emphasizes individuals’. The combination of  ‘new Kyoto’, from advice that I have just received, has thousands of references available. Even the Google list has many of them. But the point that is important here is that he casually misled the House. He happily based an entire humorous speech on misleading the House. I just want to read that again: ‘Ottawa’s new Kyoto plan emphasizes individuals’. He was happily careless with the way he presented material. What is significant is that the man who wants to be the environment minister of Australia—although he may be lucky to hold onto his job as the shadow spokesperson for the environment in the next month or two—was not even able to do basic research.

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