Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I came into the chamber today thinking that this government were climate change sceptics, but I think that a better description would be ‘climate change deniers’. We have had a couple of extraordinary admissions both in question time and in Senator Macdonald’s last couple of comments. We had Senator Minchin earlier today talking about the discussion of climate change being an apocalyptic hysteria. Then we had Senator Abetz trying to convince us that climate change is not true because otherwise Bob Brown would not have his electoral office on the Hobart waterfront. Now we have had Senator Macdonald just tell us about ridiculous Kyoto proposals. All this says to me is that this government is not serious about addressing climate change. They do not believe that climate change is actually happening. They are just trying to catch up with the polls. Everybody is ahead of the game in terms of climate change. Everyone is ahead of this government in terms of climate change. We only have to look at the coal industry itself. It recognises that things need to be done to reduce emissions.