Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Families and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

Australia's contribution to climate change is significant, and our actions in the international community shape the way that the rest of the community responds to this. We are a middle power with a significant capacity to shape international decision-making. We are not the only decision-makers, but we live in a world where working together to deal with global problems is the only possible path forward. Those who would withdraw into isolationism ought to explain what other alternative mechanism they propose to deal with the consequences of human-driven climate change.

It is a problem that isn't going to go away for the coalition. I know that there are some members on the other side who recognise the necessity to act, but they are cowed into silence during the current debate. I notice that, whenever this issue comes up in this chamber, we don't hear from those members of the coalition who I know understand the significance of climate action. They sit quietly, because it has become socially and politically unacceptable in that crowd to deal with the realities of climate change. This is a huge problem, and the coalition will remain hopelessly riven along these lines. I can't see a situation where the climate deniers change their position. I don't know what the sensible people in that organisation are going to need to do to respond to that, and I don't know when they will respond.

But I can say this: there's no good outcome from the spill tomorrow, if one is indeed to occur. Who do people want? Do you want the Treasurer, who brought a lump of coal into parliament and laughed while he was handing it around; would you prefer the former Minister for Home Affairs, who walked out of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations; would you like the Deputy Prime Minister, who has aided and abetted former Prime Minister Abbott, and indeed Prime Minister Turnbull, through all that they have done; or would you prefer the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, who has sold out everything that he once believed in? The Prime Minister once said that he would never lead a party that didn't care as much about climate change as he did. Well, maybe that's true. The past few months have shown that he doesn't care about climate. He doesn't care about energy. He cares only about power and about himself.