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

Well, get up and dispute the facts—dispute the facts of the 35 plus senators on this side who have put up a scientific policy, and who have represented their regions. Why don’t you enter the policy debate instead of just interjecting? What a disgrace it is; particularly for you, Senator Forshaw, who have been here so long. I am saying it again because I hope, at the very least, I can prick your conscience and you have a sleepless night tonight, knowing that you have not properly stood up for your constituency and that after all these years your conscience is dulled. You have been dulled. You are now just a journeyman—just a dull backbencher in government who is enjoying all the luxuries but when it really comes to standing up, where are you? You have been made a fool of by the Prime Minister and he will continue to do it until you all crash and burn. I have said that public opinion has shifted on this. We know this, if nothing else, from the Lowy institute poll and we also know that the science has properly shifted on all of this. Thank goodness it has; I was getting a bit worried in 2007.

Have you ever bothered to read the absolutely creditable research from Professor Garth Paltridge, the former CSIRO chief, called The Climate Caper? Of course you have not. What about Heaven and Earth by Professor Ian Plimer? It is credible documentation, shifting the debate and challenging the science. Even the scientists who were personally involved in the document from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are now starting to come out and say, ‘We have been verballed by a small minority of scientists.’ Let me just quote one, the United Nations IPCC’s Japanese scientist Dr Itoh, an award-winning environmental physical chemist. He said about the climate change alarmists:

The worst scientific scandal in the history … When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.

There are hundreds of those scientists who are now starting to reject the IPCC’s initial report, which is the foundation stone of this whole debate.

There is much to say in this debate. My colleagues have presented it well. Our outrage is obvious. The hoax, the fix, is in. But what I want to concentrate on is the great disappointment in those on the other side who are not willing to stand up and put their case. Many of them actually believe what we on this side believe: that these bills ought not to be passed.