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

What a bizarre proposition. We as a government took it so seriously that in 1998 we started off with a Greenhouse Office. Since then, we have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars developing alternative energy sources, such as the solar city that Mr Costello was involved in recently. We had the mandatory renewable energy targets of two per cent, set by this government. I could go on and on. But what is important is that we deal with this issue in a sensible way and not in a cheap, opportunistic way, because one thing that we do not want to do is submit the Australian pensioner, the Australian working family and Australian industry to energy charges that would drive down their standard of living for no benefit to the environment.