Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Anyone listening to the debate on this motion of censure relating to a carbon tax would wonder what all the sound and fury is about. In Senator Abetz’s 20-minute contribution, there was not one reference to the question of how Australia should respond to the climate change challenge. We had all the normal petty point-scoring for which Senator Abetz is well known—the stuff that he learnt in student politics inside the Liberal Party, the stuff that is never actually developed to a more mature approach. All we heard was outrage and petty political point-scoring. The fact is that the Liberal-National coalition ran out of questions halfway through question 2. They had nothing more to say, because all they had is political point-scoring. They had nothing to say about the issues. When the Australian public are listening to this debate, they will be asking: ‘What is the Liberal Party’s current position on this? What is the Liberal Party saying to us about the policy issues?’ The answer is: nothing. But they are working on a three-word slogan which will reflect their position that they are against it.