Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

It is perhaps a little unfortunate that the senator chooses to have a go on this issue. That is a competition which we initiated in government because I got so many letters from schoolchildren expressing their views about climate change—I have to say often more cogently than some parliamentarians, but that might be the case on a number of topics. There was an interest, in a number of schools that we spoke with, in the issue of climate change; and we thought it was a good thing to enable young people in Australia, if they wished—obviously this is entirely voluntary—to involve themselves in a competition where they could express themselves, from memory, either through a story, poetry or art, about what climate change meant to them. We are not prescriptive about it. Obviously people’s perceptions about what it will mean will differ depending on different experiences and also where they live in Australia.

Senator Boswell, I would say that if you do not want to be involved in promoting this then that is entirely a matter for you. This is entirely voluntary. But we did take the view that a lot of young Australians do express very clearly their views about the importance of this issue for their future. These are the sorts of letters I do get quite regularly from schoolchildren around Australia. The point of this competition is to build on that interest that so many young Australians have shown on a topic which is of relevance to them. The people who are potentially the most affected by climate change are our children and our grandchildren. Sometimes I suspect that makes this a politically difficult issue, but that is the reality of the facts. (Time expired)