John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps when addressing the Leader of the Opposition I should use different language. Let me simply say again what was the substance of my comments on the Lateline program the other night—that is, this government did recognise that climate change represented a challenge, but I also made it clear that, in responding to it, we did not intend to embrace knee-jerk reactions that are going to damage the Australian economy. At the end of the day, the first responsibility of this government is to secure the welfare of the Australian people in all their various dimensions. One of those dimensions is to make sure that our public policy responses on all sorts of issues do not damage the job security of Australians and do not damage the international competitiveness of this country. In our responses to the challenge of climate change we do not intend to embrace every gloomy prediction about the future of the planet. We intend to respond in a measured way, but we intend to respond in a way that does not damage the Australian economy or destroy the jobs of hardworking people such as Australian coalminers.

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