Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a pathetic effort from a minister without a shred of credibility left. It is like being flogged with a wet thesis. I will spare the minister a recounting of the numerous times that he has been rolled by his own cabinet on environmental issues: the solar roofs plan and the RET. Instead, I will go back a bit further to Australia's history as a middle power, which is an area where we have a significant record of international leadership and influence. From Billy Hughes at the Paris conference in World War I, to Doc Evatt at the San Francisco conference establishing the United Nations, to Bob Hawke's leadership in the creation of the Cairns Group in the Uruguay Round of the GATT, to Paul Keating's advocacy for the creation of an APEC heads of government meeting, we have long punched above our weight in international debates on the global issues that will shape our domestic security and prosperity. But today, the pugilist in chief, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, refuses to even get in the ring in the global fight against climate change. It is the biggest international fight for our nation's economic security, and the Prime Minister is missing in action.

The Prime Minister has refused to attend this week's UN Climate Summit, a summit attended by President Obama of the US and Prime Minister Cameron of the UK—members of the Prime Minister's beloved Anglosphere—as well as more than 100 other world leaders who will outline their nation's commitments to taking climate change seriously. The Prime Minister would rather live in a state of denial than confront the real challenges of our nation's future. Our Prime Minister would rather live in a fantasy world constructed by the undergraduate culture warriors opposite than face up to the challenges identified by the careful and diligent work of scientists from around the world.

As the Member for Wentworth so aptly said:

The fact is that Tony and the people who put him in his job do not want to do anything about climate change. They do not believe in human-caused global warming. As Tony observed on one occasion 'climate change is crap' … Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental figleaf to cover a determination to do nothing.

The extent to which this is a crank position that isolates the Prime Minister from the rest of the world is truly extraordinary.

While our Prime Minister dissembles about wanting to wait for the international community to move on this issue before Australia acts, our international peers and major trading partners are already making major strides. South Korea, with whom Australia recently concluded a trade agreement, and China with whom negotiations for such an agreement are ongoing, are both moving towards emissions trading schemes. Countries representing half the world's population now support a carbon pricing mechanism.

Lord Deben, the former chair of the UK Conservative Party and a cabinet minister for Margaret Thatcher, has noted:

Australia’s actions are appalling. While the 66 countries that account for 88 per cent of global emissions have passed laws to address global warming, Australia is repealing them.

Even Thatcherite Tories think our Prime Minister is an extremist kook on climate change! The Iron Lady might not have been for turning, but the weathervane sitting in the Prime Minister's office just keeps spinning in whatever direction the winds of short-term political advantage are blowing.

This is a Prime Minister who has at various times advocated blocking the Rudd government's emissions trading scheme, passing the Rudd government's emissions trading scheme, passing it subject to amendments and then blocking it again. This is a Prime Minister who told Australia:

If you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?

He said that in 2009, and then between 2010 and 2013 he ran around Australia promising to 'axe the tax'. This is a Prime Minister who purports to believe in free markets and then proposes a 'direct action' climate change policy straight from Soviet Central casting. This is a Prime Minister who told voters before the last election that he supported Australia's renewable energy target, and then, after the election, appointed a well-known climate change sceptic to undertake a review of the scheme.

In contrast, Labor's position on climate change is clear. We accept the science of climate change and we believe we need to do something about it. We do not run away from our nation's challenges and we do not shirk the big issues. We get in the ring and we fight for our nation's interests. We do not think our nation's future economic security and prosperity is something that is worth sacrificing in the name of pathetic political point-scoring in the culture wars. We do not care about their student politics; we care about our nation's future economic prosperity.

It is worth returning at this point to the insightful comments of the member for Wentworth on this issue in the time remaining to me. The member for Wentworth noted:

Now politics is about conviction and a commitment to carry out those convictions.

The member for Wentworth is right. Unfortunately, our country is currently governed by a Prime Minister whose only conviction on climate change is short-term political gain. So long as the Prime Minister thinks there are votes to be won from acting as though climate change is 'crap' he will continue to sacrifice our nation's economic future to do so. We on this side of the House take a bigger picture approach to Australia's future, and we will fight in international forums from here and into the future to secure our nation's prosperity.

See this speech in context