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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I ask the Prime Minister: will she repudiate Professor Garnaut's proposal for an unelected, unaccountable body to set emissions reductions targets?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As my colleagues have observed, the Leader of the Opposition has already grown bored with discussion of the economy and he is back to the only thing he knows how to do, which is to distort things in pursuit of a fear campaign. What he is doing today is distorting the words of Professor Ross Garnaut in an incredibly irresponsible way. To anybody who has listened to the Leader of the Opposition's question let me say this to them very clearly. The Leader of the Opposition has misrepresented Professor Garnaut. We always see the Leader of the Opposition do this because he cannot mount an argument that deals with the facts. It is impossible. He knows he cannot mount an argument that deals with the facts. He can never discuss the facts. He never wants to hear the facts because as soon as the facts are on the table his fear campaign falls away. So at every opportunity, including every opportunity in this parliament, he walks in with distortions.

Professor Garnaut did not say what the Leader of the Opposition put into his question. That did not happen. What Professor Garnaut talked about was the kind of climate commission they have in the United Kingdom where a body makes recommendations to government, which then performs its democratic role in the way that governments do. Of course, our democracy is filled with bodies that make recommendations to government. The Productivity Commission is just one such body that makes recommendations to government. If we look at the way that works in our democracy, it has worked for years without anybody taking the kind of silly political point we are seeing the Leader of the Opposition take today. I have never heard the Leader of the Opposition walk up to the dispatch box or indeed any other microphone and say that his Conservative counterpart David Cameron is not exercising an appropriate democratic—

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

The Prime Minister will resume her place. The Manager of Opposition Business.

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

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Prime Minister was asked a very specific question. These needlessly negative debating points that she is making are quite out of order, and I ask you to draw her back to the question she was asked.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. No matter how he characterises the argument in the response, in the standing order the only requirement is that the response be directly relevant, and the Prime Minister is aware of the need to be directly relevant.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had a distortion of Professor Garnaut's words put to me. I am correcting that distortion. No-one should believe it to be true. It is not true. I am pointing out the truth of what Professor Garnaut said. You can see examples of the kind of arrangement that he is thinking about around the world, including in the United Kingdom, where Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron very recently received recommendations from a climate commission and determined to act on those recommendations. I did not hear the Leader of the Opposition say at that time that he thought his Conservative counterpart was not behaving appropriately as Prime Minister, so let us not listen to any of this nonsense.

I think the Australian people will increasingly be asking themselves: why is it that the Leader of the Opposition can never engage in the climate change debate by dealing with the facts? Why is it that he always has to rely on falsehoods and fear? You rely on falsehoods and fear when you do not have a rational argument, and that is the Leader of the Opposition's problem. He has no rational argument, no rational policy, no rational belief in the science; all he is peddling is fear and falsehood, and every Australian should understand that.

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

I ask the Prime Minister a supplementary question. Can she recall one of her senior colleagues saying earlier in this parliament, in response to a question from the member for Lyne:

… such an important decision—

namely, the decision and the recommend­ation on emissions targets—

should be taken by elected officials of this parliament and should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

I ask the Prime Minister: does she agree with the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency or does she endorse the recommendation of Professor Garnaut?

Mr Pyne interjecting—

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

Order! The member for Sturt!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. That was clearly not a supplementary question, which must relate to the original question and the answer given by the Prime Minister. It brought in material relating to the member for Lyne and had nothing to do with the original question asked.

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

I am satisfied by its conclusion that it related sufficiently to the original question, and I will allow the question.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A question based on a falsehood and a supplementary question based on a falsehood—why is it that the Leader of the Opposition cannot tell the truth when it comes to climate change?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let us go to the truth of what Professor Garnaut said. This is the truth, and I say to those members opposite who are yelling, who may have been misled by the falsehood that their leader just spoke in this parliament: this is what Professor Garnaut said. Professor Garnaut is proposing, in terms of governance arrangements around a carbon price, the following. He is proposing an independent committee which would not set targets or price—

Mr Pyne interjecting—

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

The member for Sturt is now warned.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

but would make recommendations to government. I will just run those words past everybody again so we do not hear this falsehood repeated by the Leader of the Opposition. This misrepresentation of Professor Garnaut should stop here. Professor Garnaut said the independent committee would not set targets or price but would make recommendations to government. Under his proposal the setting of targets and scheme caps is something that would remain firmly under the democratic control of the government of the day.

The Leader of the Opposition today has come in and he knows he cannot debate carbon pricing based on the facts. He is peddling falsehoods and he is peddling fear, because he is a man with no belief in the science and no answer on the policy. No-one should believe these falsehoods. The Leader of the Opposition should stop distorting Professor Garnaut's words. He really owes Professor Garnaut an apology for this conduct.