Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'll do that. I'm merely providing the context that the rest of the world is moving and they can see that Australia is not moving. The fact that we have been informed that there is correspondence that Australia is not invited to a climate ambition summit is absolute dynamite in and of itself. The reason for the proposed suspension today is that the Prime Minister said the opposite in the House last week in response to a direct question. He maintained that we had been invited and that we were going to speak. Well, it appears that the Prime Minister has been caught out in a lie, and that's why we want to give the Prime Minister, through his representing minister, a chance to explain that potential misunderstanding—or was it an intentional misleading of the chamber?

The rest of the world knows that Australia is a climate laggard. Australians want action on the climate crisis, and they know there can be a huge jobs bonanza in clean energy. They want their parliament to deal with these matters. Does it really have to take the Greens every day raising the need for climate action for anything to get done? We would love for this matter to be properly addressed today. We would like to hear an explanation from the Prime Minister. It is not okay that the Prime Minister has potentially misled the chamber and held out that Australia's got an invite when we, in fact, specifically have not been invited.