Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Well, if you listen to what Barnaby says privately about you, mate, it is somewhat less flattering than what you have just referred to about me. Barnaby obviously speaks to us more than he does to you, mate. Then, the Leader of the National Party in the Senate—your colleague, Mr Truss; oh, he has left the chamber—said:

An ETS in the middle of this recession would have to be the most ridiculous piece of policy that you could possibly go forward with.

That is what the National Party are saying in the Senate. The Leader of the Nationals in the Senate is saying: (a) the Leader of the Opposition does not have a policy on emissions trading and (b) if he does have a policy on emissions trading then the National Party could not possibly support it because you could not possibly proceed with it as this time.That is the split with the Nationals. Then of course you have got Boswell, who said that the National Party would not be supporting it ‘under any circumstances’.

Then we go to the Liberal Party. We go back to our good friend the member for O’Connor, who came out today and once again underlined what the position of the climate change sceptics, who obtain such a majority in the Liberal Party party room, is. This is what the member for O’Connor said—as he readies himself with the standing orders, the quote, Wilson, is as follows:

I, and the majority of the Coalition party room, say it will not work, it will not deliver carbon emission reduction.

That is the position of not only the member for O’Connor but, he says, the majority in the coalition party room. Why, therefore, is the government’s legislation—

See this speech in context