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

The member for North Sydney is, of course, entitled to his views but let me tell you what the government's position is. The government's position is that we will continue to make decisions that are environmentally effective and economically responsible. What we will not do is take the reckless approach of the Labor Party, which the Australian people rejected at the last election, and that is to make meaningless promises without a plan, without a costing, without any information to the Australian people on what the impacts on the economy, on jobs, on living standards and, indeed, on global emissions are going to be, because the Australian people actually understand this very well. Imposing burdens in Australia on Australian business will just lead to shifting emissions to other parts of the world where emissions will be higher for the same level of economic output. It is not helping to address climate change. It is imposing a sacrifice here in Australia but not actually helping the environment. I would have thought that out of all people Senator Kitching would have known about this given that she's a senior member of the Otis group.

Of course, we know that there's an opportunity for bipartisan policy in relation to climate change and energy. Senator Farrell is leading the rebellion. Joel Fitzgibbon is leading the rebellion. In fact, I think we've got Jim Chalmers—he's being very quiet about this net zero emissions by 2050 proposition from the Leader of the Opposition. Here we have Mr Albanese, as 'Shorten 2.0', working with Mark Butler, who for some reason escaped the blame for this terrible policy disaster at the last election where poor old Mr Bowen was moved on from the shadow Treasurer's position.

I'm quite surprised that Senator Kitching would be asking me these questions. I would have thought that Senator Kitching would be supportive of our commitment to pursue policies that are environmentally effective and economically responsible.