Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Greenway for her question. Last year, acting on the scientific advice, countries around the world, including all the major emitters and including Australia—committed to take on legal obligations from 2020 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—and of course that is further to the pledges they have made to reduce emissions up to 2020.

As part of this mendacious and deceitful campaign that the coalition and the Leader of the Opposition have run, the Leader of the Opposition has been claiming that Australia is somehow acting alone: that we are on our own; the rest of the world is doing nothing; nothing is going on; there are no agreements to cut emissions. In fact, last year the Leader of the Opposition had this to say: 'There is no sign, no sign whatsoever, that the rest of the world is going to do things like introduce carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes.'

At the time that statement was made, New Zealand had an emissions trading scheme and more than 20 countries had had emissions trading for six years. The Kyoto Protocol had been place for quite some period of time. But in that context the Leader of the Opposition's take on international affairs is that the US is not a foreign country. It has all the credibility and quality of his foreign policy observations. In this context I was very surprised to read this morning that the member for Flinders, the shadow minister, has in fact committed the coalition to sign up to the international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These are the same agreements that the opposition leader says do not exist—that no-one is committed to. No-one is doing anything! But the fact of the matter is that, try as he might to deny it, many countries are taking action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

All 27 European Union member countries, including the UK under the conservative government, are cutting emissions. China, Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and South Africa, are all introducing moves to carbon pricing arrangements to cut their emissions. Those countries know it is the most efficient way to go about all of this. The coalition knows it, and that is why their campaign is a massive fraud—a complete litany of lies; a completely mendacious campaign.

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