Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will start by observing that there is, of course, some irony for opposition senators in having the Greens bring this motion to suspend standing orders today. Senator Gallagher outlined our general objection to this repetitive procedural technique to drag the Senate off the order of business that has been established and the discourtesy that that approach represents. But on the substance of the matter the Greens bring forward today I will make this observation: we would not need to be having this debate today if you had brought yourself to vote for the CPRS when it was brought into this chamber so many years ago. There have been many opportunities in the last decade for you to support a serious emissions trading scheme proposed by a Labor government committed to tackling climate change, but you squibbed it. You squibbed it for a range of reasons, but my deepest suspicion is that you did so because it was electorally convenient for you to maintain a point of differentiation with Labor. And, if that meant throwing away the one opportunity that you had to establish a coherent, global approach to tackling emissions reduction in the country, that was a sacrifice you were willing to make. It was a sacrifice you were willing to make for absolutely base political reasons, and you ought to be reminded of it every time this chamber comes back to climate change.

I have spent a decade of my life fighting for rational climate change policy. I am horrified at the debate this nation has gone through over the last 12 months and I am genuinely surprised to see a coalition government unable to commit to even basic principles of policy design around the National Electricity Market. It has been hopeless; it has been embarrassing. But I will say this: the Greens have not helped. You have spent a decade trying to politicise this for your own purposes, and that has been at the expense of serious policy debate in this country.