Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

We have it all on display, don't we? This is an opposition that has entirely vacated the field when it comes to the battle of ideas. This is an opposition that, when in government, was so divided internally that they were completely unable to land any kind of climate policy or any kind of energy policy. It was a government that received, under them, condemnation from business groups, particularly in the energy sector, for the uncertainty that you created—through your, Chair—through your inability to establish clear policy settings and create the policy settings that would allow businesses to invest.

Now we find ourselves with a shadow minister who seeks to ask questions about the policy process—a policy process that they could have sought to influence. We were very clear, when taking government, that we were interested in working with people across the parliament who wanted to put in place durable and sustainable policies for energy and climate. We might have expected, actually, that this opposition would be interested in that. It might have been that this opposition, having received the verdict of voters—who clearly voted for climate action, who were clearly dissatisfied with the approach taken to climate change by the previous government—it might have been an opportunity for those opposite to think about the way that they approach these policy questions. That opportunity was before them, and certainly our government would have facilitated engagement. We publicly said that we were willing to talk with people across the parliament. These were sincere offers, but they weren't taken up.

Regrettably, it's actually characteristic of the approach taken by the opposition more generally, across a whole range of policy areas. We've got to a position where Mr Dutton is setting himself up to be perhaps the most negative opposition leader since Tony Abbott—and that is coming off quite an impressive benchmark. But it's a no every time, isn't it? And the thing about no is that it's not a policy. No is not a policy. Actually, it's not even a talking point, as evidenced by the fact that, over the course of the debate, coalition senators have come in and—