Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today the Prime Minister had two opportunities to take our country towards a more sustainable and a more equal future. He had a chance to announce strong pollution reduction targets that guarantee the safe future for our climate, for our children, for our grandchildren and for future generations to come. He also had a chance to allow a free vote in his party to take us closer to removing discrimination from our marriage laws by allowing marriage equality. He could have taken us from the back of the pack internationally on climate change and he could have helped achieve marriage equality and remove discrimination from our laws in this country.

But, instead of using his position as Prime Minister to move us towards a more sustainable and equal future, our Prime Minister has today taken this country backwards. Today the Prime Minister has thankfully signed the death warrant on this government; within a year it will be out of office, because Australians want a sustainable future and equality for themselves and their children and everyone who lives with them.

The Prime Minister's pollution reduction target is a recipe for a dead planet. It sets us on track for a world warmed by three to four degrees. The analogy is with the human body. You have a narrow range of temperatures within which it can survive. If you increase it above that, you start putting the body at a huge risk. So it is with the planet. The scientists, and even the Prime Minister today, were saying that they agree we can warm the planet no more than two degrees. Well, everyone who knows what they are talking about is saying that, if every country does what this country has done today under this Prime Minister, we will be on track for a planet of three to four degrees warmer. If you want to know what that means, the scientists cannot find another city on the planet that looks like what Darwin will look like when the planet is three to four degrees warmer. We are entering a world that we have not seen before and we are entering a world that cannot sustain the same number of people that we have got now, and the Prime Minister is signing up.

But, more than that, he has today shut down the possibility of a vote on marriage equality. The Prime Minister has sided with a vocal homophobic minority over the loving majority in Australia. The Prime Minister has chosen fear over love. The Prime Minister has said to the young boy in the country town who is struggling to come to grips with who he is attracted to, 'Your love is not as equal as everyone else's.' The Prime Minister has said to the girl at high school who wants to take her girlfriend to the formal, 'We do not consider your love to be as equal as everyone else's.'

Never again will I want to hear from this Prime Minister that this is the party of freedom of choice, because what the Prime Minister has said is that freedom to choose stops at the bedroom door and that, if you love someone that we do not approve of, we will treat you like a second-class citizen in this country. He has gone further, and he has said to his own members of parliament, 'Even if you want to exercise the right that you supposedly have as a Liberal member of parliament to vote according to your conscience, we are not going to let you.' So never again will we be lectured by this Prime Minister or this party about the importance of freedom of choice, because when they had the opportunity to stand up for young Australians who want to know that their love is equal, and when they had the opportunity to say people in this chamber can vote according to their heart on one of the most important matters facing so many people in this country today, the Prime Minister said, 'We will choose hate and fear over love.' He will be remembered for this for decades and decades to come.

As I have said, this is the beginning of the end for this government. This government said, 'We will choose climate denial over science,' and, 'We will sign up to a death sentence for the planet because climate science is apparently still 'absolute crap.' When he said, 'We would rather appease the deniers than satisfy the science'—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Melbourne will withdraw that.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw to assist you, Mr Speaker.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. You were in question time; you heard my ruling.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the Prime Minister said today, 'We will appease the deniers instead of satisfying the science,' and when he said this evening, 'We are going to choose fear over love,' it was the beginning of the end for this government.