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

I will endeavour to respond to a number of the propositions that have been brought, including Senator Joyce’s question. I will start by suggesting that the debate today and yesterday really demonstrates the lack of wisdom in the opposition, the Greens and the Independents in voting against the CPRS legislation even going in committee. Essentially, much of the debate has been about the CPRS. We could have had this debate, but you shut down debate because you did not want to debate it. As parliamentarians, many of the contributions in this debate have really dealt with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, something you did not want to debate in committee. Senator Boswell said, ‘People took us at our word.’ Whilst I disagree with a lot of Senator Boswell’s policies, I think that is something he cares about. I would suggest to him he should care about it in relation to an emissions trading scheme. That was your policy. That was your policy before the last election.