Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

What does the opposition have to say in response to that? They have defined a new heresy. What is the heresy? It is the heresy of scepticism. A sceptic is a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions. Oh no! We cannot have any questioning or doubting—I question myself whether we are moving into some new form of totalitarianism—where the great edicts from the opposition, the gospel according to the Labor Party, cannot be questioned and cannot be queried.

The government has moved to deal with climate change. We are mitigating climate change. We are adapting to climate change through the biggest investment in water resources this country has ever seen. We are making up for the failures of Labor governments to invest and we are working internationally through the AP6, through the United Nations, to ensure that we achieve what all of us know is the only answer to reducing emissions in a manner that will abate global warming, and that is a global commitment. Without that global commitment there will be no abatement, and all that we do—and we will do all that we can—on mitigation in Australia will be for naught without a global commitment. That is our policy: mitigation, global commitment and ensuring that Australia is secure and sustainable in the face of a hotter and drier time ahead.

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