George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Carr, I seem to recall the former Labor government being very swift in some of the decisions it made. I seem to recall the former Labor government cancelled live cattle exports to Indonesia overnight, on a whim, because you overreacted to a Four Corners program. That's the sort of policymaking for which the previous Labor government was famous, or should I say, infamous. How many Australians suffered? How many Indonesians suffered? How much damage was done to the relationship between our two nations as a result of that ignorant, impulsive, reactive and poorly thought-through decision? When it comes to the question of the Finkel report and a clean energy target, we are going to be methodical, we are going to be careful and we are going to make a decision based on science, based on engineering and based on empirical considerations through a proper process, and it will be announced in the near future.