Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter of pubic importance on climate change. I note the point made very well by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Leader of the Opposition, when speaking with the President of the United States, somehow forgot—or did not have the courage—to raise the issue of climate change. I think it is the latter: he did not have the courage. He does not have what it takes to lead this country. When you look at the opposition strategy on climate change, you have to ask: is it a strategy based on science? I think not. Is it a strategy based on what is good for this country? I think not. Is it a strategy based on what is good for the environment? I think not. It is a strategy based on what is good for the Leader of the Opposition. It is a strategy based on what Hawker Brittontells him. ‘It is environment day today,’ says Hawker Britton, so out comes the puppet—the Leader of the Opposition—with the union leaders pulling the strings, mouthing the words on climate change. It is climate change on Monday and it is something else on Tuesday. On Wednesday it is probably productivity again, although we know he is pretty weak on productivity. It is pretty clear that he is as weak on climate change as he is on productivity growth, because any leader worth their salt, given the opportunity to raise an issue that is of real importance to them—and not just an issue that is being masqueraded as of importance—has a responsibility to discuss that issue. The Leader of the Opposition did not. He failed the test. He has failed the sincerity test. He has shown what we all know—that he is nothing but a facade. He is a cardboard cut-out. He does not have the gumption to represent this country on the world stage and he has proved it.

We have heard again and again from the Labor Party in the brief time since the APEC summit that the arrangement that was arrived at was somehow a non-event. We have an agreement which was signed by 21 countries—representing some three billion consumers, 40 per cent of the world population and more than 50 per cent of global GDP—and the agreement entered into by that forum is somehow a nonevent!

Clearly it shows how unready they are to govern when they do not understand the simple fact that major world agreements evolve—you move in regular, perhaps sometimes small, steps. This is not a small step but a large step. It is in fact a historic agreement of some 21 countries and locks in aspirational global goals for emissions reductions. The Sydney declaration is the first time that major economies such as China, the United States and the Russian Federation have agreed to specific APEC-wide aspirational goals, which will focus on a number of things. Firstly, they will focus on a reduction in energy intensity of some 25 per cent. That is something we do not hear about from the opposition. We do not hear that, when we talk about climate change and the emission of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, it is not just an emissions argument; it is very much an energy consumption argument. If we cut our energy consumption and if we increase our energy efficiency, as a result of that we reduce our emissions of CO.

We have the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of that well-known and weak puppet, the Leader of the Opposition, going around chortling on about CO emissions. But as important as the issue of CO emissions is the issue of energy efficiency. This government has taken the lead on energy efficiency. This government has taken the lead in relation to incandescent lighting to reduce our demands on energy. We do not hear the Leader of the Opposition calling on Australians to change the way they behave to save the planet; he is merely chortling on about a simplistic and populist line dictated to him by Hawker Britton in the weak way he does. He is saying: ‘We’re going to reduce our CO consumption. We’re not really going to tell you the way that it is going to be done, but we’re going to speak the populist line, because that’s what I’m instructed to do by my media minders. I just speak the words, but I’m not willing to put in place the sorts of policies’—as this government has done—‘that will put Australia on the road to reducing its CO emissions, further improving its position in relation to greenhouse emission.’ The APEC declaration was a very important declaration. It was a landmark event. The Leader of the Opposition has been left trailing in our wake. (Time expired)

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