Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is the point of this Liberal-National government if it can't grasp the environmental and economic importance of acting on climate change? What's the point after eight years and three prime ministers, who've blown the better part of a decade, who've wasted three terms doing three-fifths of nothing, with no idea how to secure Australia's job creation and export destiny as a renewable energy superpower?

We in Australia simply cannot bear another incapacitating dose of this useless and self-serving government. We can't afford to keep drifting backwards into disaster while the coalition fights itself to a deeply nutty standstill. We've already missed opportunities to be at the forefront of new technology and investment. We've already suffered the environmental and community devastation of unprecedented bushfires and bleaching reefs, yet we have a coal-waving Prime Minister who can barely muster the courage to go to Glasgow and can't find the leadership to take a meaningful policy with him. We've got a Deputy PM who says that, after eight long years in government, the Nationals won't be rushed—never mind the fact that rural and regional Australia is bearing the brunt of his climate hopelessness.

The world is moving, and we're being left behind. Our social, economic, public health and environmental wellbeing are at risk, and Australia cannot bear, cannot afford and shouldn't have to put up with another pointless spin on the merry-go-round of the Morrison-Joyce government.