Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question again to the Prime Minister is on climate change. Did the Prime Minister actually is say on Lateline two days ago that a four to six degree temperature rise would ‘be less comfortable for some than it is now’? Given that CSIRO states that a three degree rise will result in the decimation of the Great Barrier Reef and the dengue fever transmission zone reaching Brisbane and possibly Sydney, what exactly did you mean when you said that Australians would be less comfortable?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! In calling the Prime Minister, I would ask the Leader of the Opposition not to use the word ‘you’.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps when addressing the Leader of the Opposition I should use different language. Let me simply say again what was the substance of my comments on the Lateline program the other night—that is, this government did recognise that climate change represented a challenge, but I also made it clear that, in responding to it, we did not intend to embrace knee-jerk reactions that are going to damage the Australian economy. At the end of the day, the first responsibility of this government is to secure the welfare of the Australian people in all their various dimensions. One of those dimensions is to make sure that our public policy responses on all sorts of issues do not damage the job security of Australians and do not damage the international competitiveness of this country. In our responses to the challenge of climate change we do not intend to embrace every gloomy prediction about the future of the planet. We intend to respond in a measured way, but we intend to respond in a way that does not damage the Australian economy or destroy the jobs of hardworking people such as Australian coalminers.