Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

So the government looks forward to the release of Professor Garnaut’s interim report. It will inform the public debate. We encourage the nation to engage in that debate. The government, by the time the final version of the Garnaut report is produced later this year, will be taking advice from other sources as well—the Treasury and other agencies within government. It is important we get our long-term policy settings on climate change right—critical for the economy, critical for families, critical for the environment and critical for national security. After 12 years of inaction on the whole question of climate change, it is time that Australia led the international community on this question. It is time we had a government in this country which led the national debate on this question. That is what needs to be done now; that is what this government is now engaged in.

See this speech in context