Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In years to come when all those on that side have moved on, shuffled off and left MP life, when they are asked by members of the community what they did to address one of the critical issues that affected the nation—climate change—what will their answer be? On one hand, they had their fingers crossed and, on the other hand, they had a gift of cash for big polluters and just hoped that emissions would be reduced. That is all they can say they did. 'We went from a system where we made polluters pay to a system where we paid polluters, where we handed cash over to them and just hoped that they might be interested in being in a system to reduce emissions.'

That is a false hope and we know it is a false hope because the figures now show it is clear they will not meet the emissions target reduction.

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