Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

What I won't be doing, Senator Di Natale, is politicising bushfires which right now are affecting landholders, homes, environmental assets and farmers in communities in Queensland and north-east New South Wales. I will not do that while our state governments and we as a federal entity are dealing with the fallout that is occurring right now.

There's annual weather variability, and I've been very up-front in this chamber, as has Minister Littleproud, about the fact that the climate is changing. There is variability around the climate. That is why our government has been taking strong action on climate change, with our climate emergency fund, with our Climate Solutions Package, where farmers and small business people will be able to apply to us, with projects that will reduce emissions in the real term. Those are actual, practical, effective policy responses to climate change. You don't like to think that we may have a solution on the table that will assist in reducing emissions in this country—from farmers in these affected regions, from our food manufacturers and small businesses—but the fact is: we do have that on the table. They will be able to apply for technological responses that will assist their businesses to reduce their emissions and therefore assist us, as a nation, to meet our Paris targets—26 to 28 per cent on 2005. Again, you may not like to hear it, but we are, as a nation, going to solve that problem. We're going to meet those targets, where many, many nations across the world are not even coming close and haven't even signed up to the Paris Agreement. So, rather than ripping us down, let's work together to reduce emissions and meet our Paris Agreement targets.