Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

Today in the same interview the member for Wentworth said that the emissions-trading scheme was ‘part of our policy and it remains our policy today’. So here you have it: it does not matter that there has been no change in the threat to climate change; it just matters that there has been a change because now, instead of being the government, they are the opposition, so any principle just goes out the window. It does not matter if the member for Wentworth contradicts his colleagues. It does not matter if the member for Wentworth contradicts himself: last year—‘transport should be in’; this year—‘it should not be in’. It does not even matter if he contradicts himself because this is the new Liberal Party. This is the Liberal Party that does not stand for anything. This is a party of ‘back to the future’: we are now back to the days when climate change does not need addressing. The only future that they are concerned about is the future of the Leader of the Opposition, which is why the Leader of the Opposition has to appeal to the dinosaurs on his back bench who have made him the leader and who are climate change sceptics. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to be taken seriously and if the shadow Treasurer wants to be taken seriously they should be supporting and acknowledging that market based mechanisms are the least-cost way of addressing climate change. That is why the government are addressing this issue. That is why we are taking action. That is why we will be introducing an emissions-trading scheme.

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