Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

Whoa, Nelly! That was one performance! I listened to the whole of the member for McMahon's speech as he opened the batting in the matter of public importance debate, talking about what he thought the Australian way was for cutting Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. Do you know what he didn't mention in the entire 10 minutes? I accept that, if it was 90 seconds, he would have struggled, but in the entire 10 minutes he didn't mention one critical thing that has been at the heart of the Labor Party's policy position all week, which apparently is now the cataclysmic difference between whether you take climate change seriously or not—and we do take it seriously on this side of the chamber. It was a legislated target. He didn't mention it once, in a 10-minute diatribe. Clearly Labor have already abandoned their push for a legislated target. Clearly they've got the research back, and it backs this side of the chamber and what Australians think about a legislated target, because they know, exactly as the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction said in question time, only moments ago, that, when you legislate a target, what you actually do is see the power drip out of the hands of the parliament and directly into the hands of the courts, as we've seen in Germany, France and the United Kingdom. What happens when you undermine this parliament isn't just that the members here don't get a chance to stand up and speak on behalf of the Australian community and the communities they represent; you disempower the very Australians who elect us and their capacity to decide the future of this great nation.

Australians know that, at the heart of the Labor Party plan for climate change, they have no respect for democracy, no respect for the will of the people. We saw that from the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard before the 2010 election. You shake your head, Member for McMahon. I know it's something you want to forget, like so many of the other failures in your policy space when you were a minister, including those people who drowned under your watch.

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