Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I relish this opportunity to speak to today’s matter of public importance. I seize it as an opportunity—I will see if I can keep the volume up to the same level as the member who has just finished speaking—to put on the record yet again evidence of the competence of this Labor government and to highlight our proud record in these dark days of fear and loathing propagated by those opposite. What we have endured today is just another tedious moment in the farrago of fear campaigns mounted by those opposite. That is right: a farrago of fear campaigns.

This Labor government respects facts and their context. That is why we are getting on with the job of dealing with the pressing realities that we face as a nation—not the myths and mysterious machinations of those opposite who are trying to create some ‘fear bubble’ that will prevent the whole of Australia from moving forward.

I particularly want to point out the facts around our determination to move to a clean energy future for our kids and for our nation. Carbon pricing: it is the hot topic. You want to talk about it? Well, to quote a great Australian woman, our Prime Minister: ‘Let’s bring it on.’ Let’s talk about the factual basis and the reality that we need to face on climate change. Let’s talk about the fact that the multidecadal trend from 1980 to 2009 has been warming at 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. That is a fact; let’s get some facts on the table instead of this hypocrisy that we are hearing from the other side of the chamber today. This trend has not slowed down during the 2000-09 decade. It is a fact that the decade 2000-09 was the warmest decade on record—significantly warmer than the 1990s, which in turn were significantly warmer than the 1980s. These are inconvenient facts for those opposite, and we have seen them take every political position on this issue from 1980 through to today. They have form in this area, a vacillation: ‘We do believe it’, ‘We don’t believe it’, ‘We do believe it’. It changes quicker than the weather.

Take a look at the spike in the graph of the northern hemisphere surface temperature in the post-industrial age. It is a fact. It cannot be denied by those who attend to facts, but those who want to make it up as they go and change the story from day to day continue to look for signs that they read in the waters or something, about the mythology that they create daily here in this place.

Look at the loss of the Arctic Sea ice. Look at the graph of global sea-level change between 1970 and 2008. Warming of the climate system is unequivocal. It is really happening, guys. You need to open your eyes, you need to look around, and you need to listen to the factual evidence—

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