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

All I can conclude from this consideration of the impact of opinion polling on political positions is that the Liberal Party are really saying that the reason they went from accepting the science of climate change to rejecting it is that they read an opinion poll. It seems to me that you are putting the proposition today that a political party should read the opinion polls and therefore change its policy. Quite frankly, Senator, that is not our view. We think it is important that we prosecute the case for good public policy reform. While you may have changed your policy and you may have changed your attitude to the need to tackle climate change as a result of what you saw in opinion polls, we remain committed to what we see as an absolutely necessary economic and environmental reform, and we will continue to prosecute that case because it is in the interests of Australia.