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

This must be the first time the member for O’Connor has not taken a point of order. So the National Party says that the Liberals do not have a policy on climate change and the Nationals say that, if the Liberals did have a policy on climate change, they would vote against it. The Liberals, represented by the member for O’Connor, say that the majority of the joint party room oppose whatever it is that the Leader of the Opposition is on about. What does all this boil down to? It boils down to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition knows that he should be supporting this legislation—he said that it is five per cent, 15 per cent, 25 per cent, the same as the government’s. What it actually says is that the Leader of the Opposition does not have the courage to take on the climate change sceptics within his own party and within the coalition party room. In fact, as was revealed on radio last week in an interview on AM:

… a Liberal insider says a sizeable chunk of Coalition members of parliament—at least a third—would like to vote for the Government’s scheme now; that they opted for the delay strategy in order not to destabilise Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, buying him some time to unite the Opposition …

Thank you, the member for Flinders, for that briefing to the AM program—I assume it was probably him given that he is just so on song with what is generally happening on their side.

This is a serious matter that goes to business certainty; it goes to whether or not this legislation passes the Senate; it goes to the question of whether or not the business community can make confident investment decisions in the future; and it goes to whether or not the renewable energy industry as well can now invest in its future around a secure proposition about a carbon price. What we have seen with the Leader of the Opposition is not leadership. We have seen nothing but rank opportunism. My challenge to him in the national interest is: be positive, take on the sceptics on your own side and get behind the government’s program. The national interest demands it.

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