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

because, if we do not engage the global community, we will be committing Australia to economic poverty without any environmental benefit. That is very clear from the prime ministerial task force. It is absolutely obvious to anybody. That is why we need to engage globally. Also, the prime ministerial task force exposed, for all to see, how pathetic the Labor Party policy is in relation to saying, ‘We can fix this by signing up to Kyoto’—Kyoto, an agreement that does not deal with the majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is the Labor Party policy. What they will be doing is committing us to a lower economic standard of living, a low standard which we do not need to have. It is the Garrett recession that we do not need to have. That is why we as a government will continue on our steady but sure progress in relation to this very important issue, an issue on which we have been working now well and truly for over a decade.