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

I will be brief. First, in relation to the assertion on the other side of the chamber that they want to progress this matter, I do not think anybody listening or observing this debate over the last number of days would be under any illusions that the coalition—particularly the extremists in the coalition, the people who brought us Work Choices and who want no action on climate change—have not been delaying this vote until they deposed a leader. I do not think anybody would be under any illusion about what happened. So the senator’s comments about wanting to progress this legislation simply are at odds with and fly in the face of the actions of him and his colleagues. It has not been the moderates in the Liberal Party who have been in the chamber. It has been the extremists, by and large—people who have views on climate change which are out of step with the consensus science, which are out of step with where Australians want us to go. That is, they want action.

Senator Back, you look at me like that. You are entitled to your view. I accept that and I respect that. But it is not a view with which this government agrees and it is not a view with which many of your colleagues agree. I will agree with Senator Macdonald on one thing. He said that the Liberal Party can look a bit messy sometimes. I think that is probably a bit of understatement this week. I did have a feeling in this debate of the dual reality that we seem to have in the chamber. When the Greens are on their feet they say that somehow this scheme is so incredibly brown, it is dreadful, it is not going to deliver action on climate change, it is so bad it needs to be voted against. Then we hear the coalition, who say this scheme is so radical and so dreadful because it is going to do too much to change our economy. As always in this debate, those two propositions cannot simultaneously be true.

We have traversed this, and I think in my first response to Senator Milne I have really dealt with, insofar as I think it is necessary, the issues before the chamber. The government believes if you set a target you have to be able to meet it. The government believes that you do not tackle climate change by talking about it. We also believe that you do not tackle climate change by voting against the first scheme, the first plan, to reduce Australia’s emissions that the national parliament has debated.

The reality is that what we see at the moment is the coalition in a complete mess. I was asked by Senator Brown to comment on what my response was to their latest press conference. I would say this: we are the government. We have a policy that has been worked through our party, through our caucus room, with community, with stakeholders—both industry and environment—and then negotiated with the opposition in good faith. We do not change position simply because there is yet another rumour about what the latest position of the coalition is. We will press forward with this package. We will press forward for action on climate change. We know, because the Greens have made it clear, that they will vote against this bill. We know that the National Party will vote against this bill. And we know now—we have always known—that there are a number of coalition senators who will vote against this bill. But we will do what is in the national interest and what we told Australians we would do when we went to the last election. So the government does not support the Greens amendment. There has been a lot of debate. If we can bring this amendment to the vote and move on to the next one, that would be appreciated.