Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

as a result of which the Cairns shipbuilding industry, once very vibrant and successful and employing people, was shut down. And Senator McLucas has never criticised the Labor government for that horrendous decision that destroyed a shipbuilding industry in my state of Queensland. The coalition government is working towards a shipbuilding industry, and I am delighted that this has been done. I thank my colleague Senator Sean Edwards for his part in building this industry in Australia back up.

The motion before the chair is to take note of all Labor questions. I will briefly mention a couple of other questions that came up at question time. One of them related to the issue of emissions of carbon. I just point out to the Labor Party and the Greens, who criticise the government all the time, that it was the Howard government that committed to a target in Kyoto and that the Australian government is one of the few governments around the world that actually met and exceeded its Kyoto targets. We will do this under the plans put forward by the Prime Minister just yesterday. It is important that we concentrate on this issue. Again, we will see in Paris that Australia will make commitments that it will keep—unlike other countries, which will make commitments and not keep them, unlike the Labor Party, who will make commitments that they know they have absolutely no chance of committing to.

Finally, there was a question about same-sex marriage. I again point out to those who might be interested: unlike the Labor Party, which is directed by the unions to vote in a particular way, in the coalition we have a full debate on these issues and come to a conclusion that is guided not by the unions and some faceless men in the Labor Party but by the people of Australia, represented by their representatives in this parliament. (Time expired)