Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

It's a cognate debate, Deputy Speaker, as has been emphasised a number of times, and it's been a wide-ranging one, as speakers have emphasised. I'm going make the point that Liberal voters who take this issue seriously should vote out the members for Goldstein, Kooyong, North Sydney, Higgins and Mackellar. They should vote out those people who disrespect their concern about climate change. They want serious action to be taken on this, and they are constantly just used and abused by these members who come here off the back of those prized Liberal safe seats and do nothing. Until you vote these people out, you will not get the Liberal Party to shake off its stupor and its deeply ingrained antipathy to dealing with this properly.

This is why the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, on losing the leadership, remarked about how bad it was that in the modern Liberal Party they couldn't see that they needed to act on climate change and that there was an economic imperative to do so and an opportunity to do so. This member has a poster describing him as a modern Liberal, but a modern Liberal is still a Neanderthal when it comes to this issue. He and all these other members won't take this issue seriously. So, if you want them to take it seriously, you've got to vote them all out. You've got to put Independents in those seat.

I totally get it. While we have a lot of common ground with those Liberal voters who take these issues seriously, they're not going to vote for us, but they absolutely will vote for an Independent. They'll recognise, just as they did in Warringah, that that's the way to shake things up and get people moving. The only time you saw the whites in the eyes of the Liberal Party was when that happened. Then you'll see things like this bill taken seriously. You will see action to ensure that renewable energy is supported with investment, with a regulatory framework and with resources put behind it. The government can work collaboratively with businesses and regional economies to make sure that they're looked after and that it isn't just weaponised. But, as I said, until you see this ridding, this deep-seated antipathy to taking this action and the constant politicking on it, nothing's going to happen.

You've got to give the member for Goldstein a career break, with the members for Higgins, Wentworth, Mackellar, North Sydney, Kooyong and Brisbane. Teach the Liberal Party a lesson, change the dynamics of politics in this country and make sure we take this issue seriously, and see us get not only a reduction in emissions but also a boost in the economy.

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