Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The sky was going to fall in. The Australian economy would grind to a halt. Do you remember when we were told that the cost to business of the superannuation guarantee was too high? Do you remember that? It is the same argument from the same people; they just do not get it. Their response to everything is that the Australian economy will not be able to cope, but they just do not get that the world moves on. They hate change, they hate improvements, they hate progress and they hate people who argue that climate change is going to affect this economy, because it will. But they just do not get it.

At five minutes to midnight, after 11 years in office, when the Prime Minister has poured scorn on emissions trading—he poured scorn on the states when the states put up an emissions trading scheme; he said it would wreck the Australian economy, ruin the Australian way of life, wreck the Australian coal industry—it is all okay. Yesterday we heard for the first time that targets were okay after 11 years. Ten years after Kyoto, four years after a cabinet submission on an emissions trading scheme, three or four months before an election, targets are now acceptable.

When it comes to climate change, you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. The government are part of the problem because they do not believe it. If you are part of the problem, you cannot be part of solution. By their inaction, they have made themselves part of the problem because they just do not believe that climate change is real. They just do not believe that it is happening.

As was pointed out during question time, taxpayer funded polls have told them climate change is happening and we have had a road to Damascus conversion: emissions trading and targets are okay. The government have been ignoring the Economist, ignoring the Business Roundtable on Climate Change, ignoring 71 economics professors around this country who wrote an open letter saying that urgent action is required. They ignored their own government departments, including the Treasury, four years ago and failed to act. The Australian people are paying the price, and the Australian economy will pay the price because it will be affected by climate change, more than many others. Plenty of people have been telling the government, but they have not been listening because they just do not get it.

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