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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The truth is that this is a very difficult story for those opposite to listen to, because it is 12 years of excuses for inaction and it is now 18 months of further excuses for inaction. What is going on here is very simple. It is not about policy; it is about the internal politics of the coalition. Everyone knows that. Everyone watching this debate knows that that is the truth.

As of May 2009, the government had managed to build a wide coalition in support of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. On the side of business we had positive statements of support from both the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group. We also had broad community support from the Climate Institute, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and others. These are the product of hard work by hardworking ministers on a very difficult and contentious piece of legislation—difficult and contentious in any jurisdiction seeking to legislate in this manner across the world. But one force has held us back from achieving progress on climate change, and that is the old guard of the Liberal Party, now in control of the Liberal Party.

Today after so many reports, reviews, consultations and even their election commitment and the aspiration of the overwhelming majority of the Australian people, the Liberal Party have once again chosen to turn their back on the future. Again let us put into absolutely clear and stark context the remarks made on this subject within the last year by the now Leader of the Opposition. He said that the Emissions Trading Scheme is the central mechanism to decarbonise our economy. He said that the biggest element in the fight against climate change has to be an emissions trading scheme. He said that our firsthand experience in implementing an emissions trading scheme would be of considerable assistance for our international negotiations to achieve an effective global agreement. From all these statements of high courage, what has suddenly changed? What has changed between these statements of high principle from the now Leader of the Opposition last year to the absolute collapse in the authority of his leadership this year? It is to do with the fact that there is no authoritative leadership at all within the Liberal Party today, and the nation is suffering as a consequence. Today the Liberal Party of Australia is beholden to the climate change sceptics. Today they are absolutely demonstrating themselves as being prisoners of the past, prisoners of their own internal party disunity. The Liberal Party, prisoners of the past on climate change, prisoners of their own party disunity on climate change, are therefore placing the nation’s future at risk. Rather than marking this day as one when the nation actually grasped its future, those opposite have chosen instead to consign Australia to the past.

I would appeal to all those who lie within the ranks opposite, as women and men of conscience, to actually overcome the rancid nature of their disunity and to act for the first time in the national interest on climate change.

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