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

If the member for Lilley wants to become a destroyer of the Australian coal industry, let him go and justify that. There is an idea that this country could achieve that kind of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020, which is a bare 13 years from now, but the economic dislocation, the level of unemployment and the damage that would be done to Australia’s competitive position is self-explanatory. It is imperative that we do not take action as a nation which puts us at an unfair disadvantage with the rest of the world. That kind of action would do that and, whilst there are quite a lot of things in Stern’s report and in his work that we agree with, we will take decisions in the national interest. History is littered with examples of nations having overreacted to presumed threats to their great long-term disadvantage.

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