Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last two weeks, there's been a lot of discussion about Australia and its commitment to reduce its emissions, and the Prime Minister is heading off tonight to represent our country in Glasgow. Also in the last two weeks, I've been sitting in the House listening to some of the speeches that school students have brought in as part of a competition, and something struck me very hard: a lot of them are quite bleak about the future, largely relating to climate change and the impacts of it. It made me think that there's a responsibility in this place, in the political debate, not to steal the hopes and the futures of our younger people, because what's driven humanity on for millennia is the hope that tomorrow will be better than today and the belief in mankind to overcome the problems that come towards it. To have members in here—the member for Melbourne and others—talking up climate emergencies and a future that is indeed bleak with bushfires and the like is very irresponsible. I can remember that when I was seven years old my school holidays and weekends were caught up in a very severe drought, where my father's farm was completely depleted and our grain was gone, but we always had a belief that tomorrow was going to be better, and we should remember that when we're making speeches in this place. (Time expired)