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

By the way, are you as a Victorian senator getting up to represent your state and speaking on this matter at any point? I notice you are not on the speakers list at all. The lack of speakers from the other side is a very important matter. Talk about being gagged, but I will have something to say about that when I have a full 20 minutes to speak. My point is that extremism is still coming from the other side—and it is great to watch them squirm—but the extremists have to explain why every indication is that the rest of the world has put off any scheme. There are no schemes—the other side will have to update their speakers notes. No other country has put in place an emissions trading scheme, least of all the major ones—China, India and the United States. The extremists from the other side now have to explain about the deferral of the major emitting countries. They have to explain the science from their point of view, the courage of so many scientists that are fighting back, as we heard from Senator Eggleston. Leading scientists from the CSIRO have been so long gagged by the other side—I should add leading scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from whence all this idiotic extremism has come.

Do you really think we are going to depend on the New South Wales government report about the sea levels on the eastern seaboard of this country when we have better experts than that? The world’s leading expert on sea levels, Professor Nils-Axel Morner of Stockholm University, tells us that sea levels are not increasing. To put it in less diplomatic language than a professor would, he calls swamping of the Australian eastern seaboard absolute rubbish. The gig is up for this great fake. If you thought the Prime Minister’s claim about being an economic conservative was fake, if you thought his fixing up of the state hospitals was fake, if you even thought his going into a strip club and not seeing a stripper was fake, you ain’t seen nothing yet. This is the greatest hoax ever played on the Australian people and it is fake. What is more, most of you on the other side know this is fake, particularly the New South Wales senators because they have their own state report on this matter. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.