Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

The member is still interjecting. I want to read his quote out:

We have observed anti-democratic comments from many so-called environmentalists calling for the overthrow of democracy and/or capitalism to save the planet.

This is the public policy rigour of the Liberal and National parties, when we are at the threshold of one of the most important debates that this country has ever had. He talks about the overthrow of capitalism. Regrettably, it is the overthrow of reason that is the problem we face here. I suspect the member for Tangney calling it the ‘overthrow of capitalism’ would surprise the many hardworking Australian families who are now in the process of wanting to build clean energy industries with the assistance of the Rudd government’s programs—that is, the tradies, the truck drivers, those people along the supply chain and the many, many clean energy jobs that the government are actually delivering with our programs. As for the overthrow of democracy that the member refers to, I can only think of all those Australians who voted in November 2007 to bring an end to 12 years of denial and climate change scepticism on the part of the Liberal-National Party, now led by the Leader of the Opposition, and to provide a clear message from the Australian public that they wanted a government that was going to be serious about tackling climate change and about bringing forward the benefits and the fruits of employment to the Australian economy that our policies are already delivering.

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