Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

We will responsibly deal with this issue, but not in such a way as to drive jobs and industry offshore. There is absolutely no point in Australia bringing in policies which simply mean that industries and jobs move to India, China or somewhere else. That is not dealing with this issue in the way that we are. That would be utterly futile. In fact, it would increase the level of greenhouse gas emissions. We are the government which introduced the mandatory renewable energy target. We are proud of that. But we made clear our reasons for holding the target at the level that it is currently at. I repeat that the government will continue to put in place affordable, sensible and appropriate policies to help contain emissions and, at the same time, we will ensure that we do our utmost to adapt to the reality of climate change.