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

Those opposite scoff at the notion that they may be engaged in a debate about politics at the moment. When it comes to climate change, we have been in this House for a long time now and we have not received a single question from those opposite on climate change. Why? Because they could not organise themselves in a unity ticket in a brown paper bag, let alone come to the dispatch box with an agreed position on climate change. Therefore, for the honourable member to stand at the dispatch box and say that there will be no impact when it comes to electricity prices as a consequence of a CPRS simply is a flight from economic reality which the former Prime Minister of Australia himself embraced when he spoke about the need for this country to move in the direction of an emissions trading scheme—also, I would have thought, a position which those opposite embraced when they themselves, at least it seemed, embraced the need for action on climate change through a cap-and-trade scheme.

But those opposite again have intervened on the question of politics. Again, the climate change deniers and the climate change sceptics of the Liberal Party and the National Party are running policy. That is why they cannot reach a concluded position on climate change. For example, remember that one of the leadership aspirants on the part of those opposite, the shadow minister for health—I refer to Mr Abbott—said on 27 July:

The point I made about an emissions trading scheme is that I don’t like it one little bit.

I would have thought that the shadow minister in question—

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