Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

I can't answer this question without noting again and thanking the Greens again for having joined with Liberal and National party senators in voting down the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that Senator Wong sought to introduce. Those of us on this side of the chamber continue to be grateful for your efforts to help us properly balance environmental protection with economic responsibility. That is, of course, the way we approach these things. We are committed to effective action on climate change. When we came into government, we were running behind in terms of meeting our emissions reduction target signed onto in Kyoto. We're now running ahead of meeting that commitment. And we have a plan to meet our emissions reduction targets agreed to in Paris, but we will not take reckless and irresponsible decisions that would harm Australian families for no environmental benefit. Sending economic activity and jobs overseas for the same level of economic output but with higher emissions does not help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. That would be just gratuitously imposing a sacrifice on Australians to make ourselves feel better when we're actually hurting them for no purpose whatsoever.