Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted that Senator Lundy has taken some notice of what, if I might say, was an excellent speech concerning weeds. As so often happens with the Australian Labor Party, there is a small degree of truth in the assertion but then they develop it beyond that which was actually said. So many of us on this side have been burnt by accepting the assertions of those opposite. I know of no scientist—no person—who believes that weeds are not a direct and present threat to the biodiversity of this country, besides costing our farming community literally billions of dollars each and every year. There is no dispute about that. It is a present threat and it is a very real threat. I think those opposite would acknowledge that.

At the time that I gave that speech there was—and, indeed, there still remains within the community at large—some scepticism about climate change. And what better example did we have than yesterday’s TV news when Mr Rudd and Mr Garrett tried to pull a stunt with a farmer and that farmer in fact indicated his scepticism. Ask that farmer whether he has any question about the real and direct threat of weeds to his property and he would say, ‘A no-brainer—of course they are.’ So the point that I was making quite rightly in that speech was that, whilst there were and there still are today some climate change sceptics within the community, there are no sceptics in the community about the real and present threat of weeds to our biodiversity—a very simple proposition. Those who are blinded by the extreme green mantra, of course, cannot see the sort of sensible, balanced approach that we have taken in relation to this matter. There is nothing inconsistent with what I said in that speech—I think it was in September last year—and that which is the government’s position today.