Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the clearest spokesperson for the Liberal Party, who, when I say 'climate change is real', chants, 'No, it's not'! I thank him for outing the fact that the Liberal Party is in the arms of climate change sceptics and deniers. I think Australians need to know that. Obviously, the member for Tangney is being constrained now, by a parliamentary friend, from continuing to tell us about the climate change scepticism and denial of the Liberal Party. But our climate is changing, our planet is warming and that has consequences for our country. In the face of those consequences, we can say no and just drift into a future with more dangerous climate change or we can say that we will shape that future, we will cut carbon pollution, we will ensure that there are clean-energy jobs and we will do this in the fairest possible way, the Labor way—helping pensioners, helping families with kids, helping Australians who need tax cuts the most. We can seize this clean energy future, as this House of Representatives did yesterday, or we can do what that Leader of the Opposition does, which is work out on any given day where the political wind is blowing and what he believes in on that day. That is what he has consistently done on climate change. He has been in favour of putting a price on carbon. He has talked approvingly about a carbon tax. Now he has campaigned against a price on carbon. He has feigned concern for steelworkers' jobs. He has voted against steelworkers' jobs in this parliament. And, in the lead-up to the election in 2013, we will see the most ridiculous campaigning of all: the Leader of the Opposition trying to pretend that he seriously wants to take carbon pricing away—a hollow promise from a man that should not be believed, given the weathervane politics he has pursued.

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