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

Well, the Leader of the Opposition is not coping with an argument! He is not coping with the argument because he is a man who stood alongside Prime Minister Howard in 2007 and stood for election on a platform of an emissions trading scheme. He is the man who had been out publicly supporting carbon pricing, and he is the man who described his change of position not as anything to do with the interests of the Australian nation and not anything to do with tackling climate change. He went to his closest colleagues and said, 'I'm a weather vane on this. I just get out the opinion polling and I work out what is in my political interests. I don't worry about the national interest. I don't worry about seas rising. I don't worry about climate change. I don't worry about any of that. The future is too complicated for me; it would require deep thinking.'

So that is why—

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