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

The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate is putting words in my mouth. All I did, in my answer to his question, was to point out that any responsible national government must take account of whether or not acting unilaterally will actually achieve anything positive without doing great damage to the Australian economy. I note his reference to Sir Nicholas Stern, who, as I understand it, does particularly emphasise the importance of international action, for the very reasons I outlined in my answer.

With the extraordinary growth in the Chinese economy, you could shut down the Australian economy tomorrow and eliminate all our greenhouse gas emissions from anthropogenic causes and they would be replaced in nine months by the growth in China. That is a demonstration of the very serious issue that is at hand here as to what is responsible and possible, on Australia’s part, to cost-effectively reduce emissions without reducing Australian standards of living for no point whatsoever. We would ask the Labor Party to adopt a much more balanced attitude on this issue.