Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the outset, I agree with the member for Flinders in one aspect of his contribution to the House today—that is, we are at a critical point. We are pressed to do something of paramount generational importance, and that is to tackle the influence of climate change—an issue that on their side they grappled with for years. They ignored public pressure to deal with what the public wanted to see: support for Kyoto, support in tackling climate change and some sort of action taken for the sake of future generations. They comprehensively failed to do anything until the last moment when their former leader, John Howard, agreed that they would need to do something and support an emissions trading system. He was ultimately required to face the grinding weight of facts and the compelling case to act. Again, it is worth noting that 2010 was one of the warmest years on record. The previous decade was one of the warmest. The graphs recording movement in temperature might bounce up and down but the trend line is undeniably moving upwards. The turning point for us—

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