Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister and I refer him to his repeated statement that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time and I ask: does he still believe that? Further, I refer the Prime Minister—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Those on my right! The Leader of the Opposition has the call. The member for Wakefield!

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, if I might begin again: I refer the Prime Minister to his statement that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time. Does he still believe that? Further, does the Prime Minister still believe that to defer action would be ‘absolute political cowardice and an absolute failure of leadership’?

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Sidebottom interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Braddon, again, is not assisting. The question has been asked and the Prime Minister now has the call.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome any question from the Leader of the Opposition on climate change, any question whatsoever that he may wish to ask on climate change, particularly given his recent discussions in Sunday school with little children, telling them that it was hotter in Jesus’ time—and right on cue the guy up the back says, ‘It’s true.’

No credible scientist in the world believes that it was hotter in Jesus’ time than it is 2,000 years later after 250 years of the industrial revolution. You know those things called factories with smokestacks and things coming out of the top? That is what is making the world hotter. It is called climate change through global warming. What I find disturbing about all this—and the position of the government on previous statements remains unchanged—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On the question of relevance, in anyone’s wildest dreams that answer is not relevant to the question that was asked, which was very specific and requires being answered.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Mackellar will resume her seat. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This new twist on the part of the Leader of the Opposition to substantiate his policy positions on religious beliefs I find interesting. There was a debate earlier on about homelessness—am I right?—where he said, in justifying his position, that they would not support our position to bring down homelessness. He again invoked Jesus of Nazareth to say, ‘The poor you have with you always.’

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The member for Sturt on a point of order which will be on relevance.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order which is clearly on relevance. He was asked whether he still believed that climate change was the greatest moral challenge—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will return to responding to the question.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt is warned.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said in response to the question from the Leader of the Opposition before, on both of the matters he raised, neither my position nor that of the government has changed. Can I say in response, though—to the man who stood in this place and assassinated the member for Wentworth in order to obtain the leadership of the Liberal Party and then proceeded to vote down this government’s emissions trading scheme and has the gall to stand at the dispatch box and provide a moral lecture on climate change—what moral planet does he live on? Having himself destroyed bipartisan consensus on emissions trading, having assassinated the member for Wentworth on the basis of that and having said just before that emissions trading must be passed before this parliament, he stands there as if he occupies a position of moral principle. I would suggest to the Leader of the Opposition he reflect again on climate conditions in Palestine in the year 32 AD.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The House will come to order.