Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not sure whether to move an extension of time. I haven't seen a comedy act better than that since two clowns and a circus monkey got involved! Three rings and a Josh Burns are what every good children's party needs!

The member for Macnamara seems to have confused Australia with that imprisoned island of Cuba. How un-Australian! You're meant to go to the United Nations to have some tin-pot regime shout down a liberal democracy on the basis of human rights, not come to the Federation Chamber of the national parliament to hear an opposition backbencher—I would describe him as humble, but I believe that would be misleading the parliament—say, 'This faction of the Liberal Party, these modern Liberals, are giving it a go.' They're only some of the most important House of Representatives committee chairs in this place, but he, as a backbencher in opposition, can tell us all about how we should be running climate policy in Australia!

The fact of the matter is that the member for Kingsford Smith and the member for Macnamara simply have to come in here and use the same sort of illogical, irrational, unmathematical—innumerate would be a word you could use for both members; however, it would be unfair to those genuinely suffering from innumeracy. Everything that is up is down in their world. An increase is in fact a decrease. A decrease is in fact an increase. The member for Kingsford Smith was holding up a prop, but he was holding it upside down! Those opposite are a three-ring circus. I would like to say they're missing clowns, but the problem is that they're all clowns—every single one of them.

This government has driven down greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. We have put the highest level of investment into renewable energy, compared to anywhere else in the world, per capita, multiplied twice. The rest of the world is looking at us, going, 'How can we do it as well as they're doing it?' The members opposite compare us to places like the United Kingdom, which had a 68 per cent decrease in greenhouse gases, but fail to mention the fact that they don't have any extraction resources or an export farming sector. They look at New Zealand—whose emissions have gone up, while ours have gone down by 19 per cent—which excludes agriculture from their outcome. Australians are leading the world. We should be proud of what we've managed to achieve, given the circumstances in which we have achieved them.

We are exporting gas to those countries that otherwise would be using coal-fired power. We have reduced greenhouse gas emissions in South Korea and Japan, and the only thing that the opposition can do is sneer, fear and smear. They are their three tactics. They cannot deal in facts, they cannot deal in numbers, and they cannot deal in graphs held the right way up. All that they can deal in, quite frankly, is sneer, fear and smear, because they need to silence anyone who stands up with a factual statement. Fact: Australia is per capita the largest investor in renewable energy anywhere in the world by a factor of two. Fact: our emissions have come down by 19 per cent since 2000.

We have met our Kyoto targets. We will meet our Paris targets. The Prime Minister has made it clear that our aspiration is to get to net zero before 2050 if possible. Unlike those opposite, who have a target without a plan—because let's face it, those opposite are a conclusion in search of a fact, and they're yet to find one—this government is achieving what it said it would. We are not taxing Australian households. We are not taxing Australian companies. We are not destroying jobs. We are leading the world, and we should be proud of it. It's about time those opposite got in the game of agreeing and putting that forward.

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