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

Right on cue, the member for Boothby intervenes—and jobs. Let me think: how many people are employed in tourism on the Great Barrier Reef? Tens of thousands. What happens if you do not have a Barrier Reef? You do not have tens of thousands of jobs in tourism, which is why people in Far North Queensland are so desperately concerned about the impact on coral bleaching and other factors coming off climate change on what is not just an enormous environmental asset for Australia and the world but also, critically, a generator of jobs in Far North Queensland.

The honourable member asked me specifically about national and global action on climate change. I have just returned this morning from the APEC meeting in Singapore. In Singapore it was my privilege together with the President of Mexico to co-host a meeting of leaders from the APEC economies with the Prime Minister of Denmark. The Prime Minister of Denmark is the President of the Conference of Parties which will be convened in Copenhagen in about three weeks time. The clock is ticking as far as climate change is concerned, but the clock is also ticking when it comes to concluding an agreement at Copenhagen, and that is what we were talking about. Some weeks ago, as I have indicated in various public interviews and possibly in the parliament itself, the Prime Minister of Denmark asked the Mexican President and me to become Friends of the Chair—

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