Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is—he is the former President of this chamber and I respect him for that, and I respect his position as Deputy President. You may well laugh at that, but on this side we are all laughing at you because this debate on climate change has been going on for years, since the 2007 election. If the effects of the Labor government’s policies on this matter and their rhetoric on this matter were not so serious, it would be really quite funny. We watch the squirming going on on the other side as everything shifts from under them, as the whole debate shifts from under them. The science has shifted from under them, the public view and opinion have totally shifted from under them, and now the world has shifted from under them. In fact, the world has put Armageddon off! Your rhetoric about Armageddon, that the seas are imminently going to swamp the Australian east coast, that the Antarctic is going to melt, that polar bears are going to die and that the Murray River will dry up we are still getting today. Even today, with the big shift in public opinion, we are still getting that from the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong.

The world has even walked away from you. No, the Mexican President, I believe, is still sticking by our Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, as both of them scurry around the APEC conference trying to save what they believe to be the Copenhagen agreement. The truth of the matter is, as we heard in question time today, that the Canadian parliament are deferring any scheme to post the Copenhagen meeting. We now hear that the leaders of the United States Senate, the major player in all of this, are deferring their scheme.