Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

We continue to honour our policies, our commitments, in relation to emissions and in relation to energy affordability, security and reliability. We also listen to climate science and evidence—but we listen to it all. We don't cherrypick like those in the Greens do. We don't decide that every extreme weather event is attributable to changes in the climate. We know that credible scientists point out that this is a time of year when major storms occur, that it is not surprising to see multiple events occur at once. Dr Phil Klotzbach, the atmospheric scientist from Colorado State University, and Dr Jeff Weber, meteorologist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, have highlighted, in relation to events in the United States, that patterns such as this have been seen before. But we accept that climate indicates that there are changes and eventualities that we need to deal with. That is why as a government we have invested not only in policies to address emissions but also in adaption policies to ensure that Australia deals with those changes. (Time expired)