Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

This government, across all its tiers and factions, from the Prime Minister down, lacks the expertise and the conviction to take serious action on climate change. When it comes to climate change, we have seen a whole-of-government failure across the whole front bench. I ask the House: what has the Treasurer ever done to address climate change? Eleven federal budgets have not once mentioned climate change. I ask the House: what about the foreign minister mocking, first, Kyoto and then, this year, calling aspirational targets a political stunt? I ask the House: what about the Minister for Environment and Water Resources opposite?—many words but very little action. And, of course, senior figures across the government and a number of backbenchers believe, incredibly, that humans are not causing climate change at all.

This is a tired government—a government with only enough energy and ideas to protect its back; a government which, when it comes to addressing climate change, has shown itself incapable of rising to the challenge.

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