Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have come in on the end of the debate on the matter of public importance. I think the member for Boothby himself is in an absolute state of denial about the government’s record on this most serious challenge facing our nation and the globe. On this issue his government has no coherent strategy and, as with many other issues, its response is predominantly poll driven. Let me remind members on the other side of the chamber about the degree of scepticism that exists on the government benches. I will quote the words of the industry minister. He is on record not long ago as saying:

... carbon dioxide levels go up and down, and global warming comes and goes.

No wonder, with that attitude, that he admitted on the Sunday program with Laurie Oakes:

... Well I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change.

You heard it from a very senior government minister. It is no wonder that the Leader of the Opposition described your Prime Minister the other day as a ‘rolled-gold climate change denier’. Of course the polls are now reflecting a very strong sentiment in the Australian community, and it is no wonder that the sceptics have now reformed themselves into so-called global warming realists. It was the same industry minister who dismissed Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth as ‘just entertainment’. Talk about burying your head in the sand and ignoring all the warnings from eminent Australian and overseas scientists.

The actual inconvenient truth for the Howard government is that the Australian community understood the significance of dangerous climate change and its negative consequences long before government members and the Prime Minister saw the light on their road to Damascus. You can correlate the conversion of those who described themselves as sceptics who now say they are realists on this issue to nothing more than the pressure of public opinion. We are now going to see a huge advertising campaign spending taxpayer funds. But I know that taxpayers will not be hoodwinked on this issue. They will see through the lack of action on this critical and important global issue under the stewardship of this government over the last decade.

It was quite pathetic over the last week to hear the responses of the Prime Minister to the questions we were asking about this advertising campaign. His responses were bizarre. He obfuscated, he misled and he was deliberately evasive, playing semantic games in answer to legitimate questions being asked in the House. His responses were, ‘As a government, we have not approved the advertising campaign.’ In another quote he said, ‘No minister has approved materials for distribution.’ In another quote he said, ‘No TV campaign has commenced.’ Yet at the same time officials from the department at the Senate estimates hearings were telling us about the degree of preparation that had gone into this campaign, preparation that included market testing of the Prime Minister’s letter to households. This is unbelievable: to think that you have to market test a letter to households because households know that what is being said is in direct contradiction of the views of the sceptics on the government benches. Late last year the industry minister also proclaimed, ‘Taxes and targets do not deliver greenhouse gas savings, technology does.’

Technology has an important role to play, but it is not going to achieve outcomes without some form of emissions trading and targets. We have even had the latter-day conversion of the Prime Minister. He is now warming to the idea of a national emissions trading scheme—even though that scheme was junked by cabinet when the Treasurer and others proposed it not too long ago. The Prime Minister is now warming to the idea of at least having to set long-term targets. The Australian population will not be fooled. They know that this is another attempt to try to salvage the government’s chances, in the election due very shortly, with a massive advertising campaign. After 11 long years of inaction, an expensive campaign costing tens of millions of dollars will not salvage the government’s appalling record. A government full of climate change sceptics cannot find climate change solutions.

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