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

With those opposite you always know when there is a problem because the volume goes up on their side. So we have this from Frontier Economics, which was cited by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday when he said:

I do want to draw your attention to the work that has been done by Frontier Economics who have said that our policy is economically and environmentally responsible.

They have said:

We’ve never said anything about whether that’s more cost effective than the CPRS or, indeed, what we proposed, so it’s been a very limited review in this case.

If you are going to go out there and try and claw together some credibility from Frontier Economics, to invoke their name in the debate, and then the managing director of Frontier Economics comes out 24 hours later and effectively distances that organisation from the detail of the plan which has been put forward, what that does is let the cat out of the bag. The Leader of the Opposition says he is a straight talker. He came out yesterday and said that this organisation, Frontier Economics, were pretty happy with what they had put forward. Frontier Economics have had a different point of view put out to the public today. If you cannot even line up Frontier Economics behind your plan 24 hours after you have released it, I think you have a credibility problem.

Always remember, when it comes to the credibility on this question, what the former Leader of the Opposition had to say about the current Leader of the Opposition on climate change. When it comes to climate change—and Mr Abbott has changed his position four or five times over the last five or six months—the former Leader of the Opposition says that the current Leader of the Opposition would go in and say, ‘Mate, you know that on climate change I am just a bit of a political weathervane’. All that goes to underpin the point that he believes that climate change, in his own words, is ‘absolute crap’ and the entire scheme he has put forward is not effective, does not add up and therefore, frankly, does not deserve the support of the Australian people.

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.

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