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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s answer to my previous question. Given the list of 13 or so measures the Prime Minister referred to in his previous answer, will the Prime Minister inform the House by how much these and other measures introduced by the government have reduced Australian greenhouse gas emissions?

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

I do not carry that figure around in my head. I do not think the Leader of the Opposition does either. I do not think anybody carries it around in their head. Can I make the point that all of the experts that I talk to on this subject say that any action taken now in relation to greenhouse gas emissions will take years into the future to produce a reduction in the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. I think it would logically follow that action taken over the last 10 years would not begin to show up for some years into the future. If the Leader of the Opposition has some magical alternative to that piece of reasoning, I would be interested to hear it.