Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the National Party, in his comments, directed not one single word to the appropriation bill that the minister in the Main Committee is responsible for but rather persisted with an attack on the Queensland state government—not content with having done so a few days ago in the House on a notice of motion.

The comments that I would direct to the environmental aspects of the appropriation bill are to draw attention to the fact that this budget places care for the environment, care for our land and care for our country at the centre of national policy—and it could not provide a starker contrast with what the previous government was engaged in. The community was offered two very distinct approaches at the last federal election, and it has made the choice—and the choice in the environmental area was a stark one.

In the international arena, we had a choice between the Liberal Party, which stubbornly refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol and acted as a spoiler on international climate change negotiations and the Rudd Labor government, whose first act was the ratification of the Kyoto protocol, which has given Australia a seat at the international negotiating table on climate change, where Australia is going to be able to play a significant role in the future—a role that was denied it by the actions of the former government. In terms of science, we had a choice between the former Prime Minister, who said that a five-degree increase in temperature would be, to use his words, ‘uncomfortable for some’, and a Rudd Labor government which accepts the science, a Rudd Labor government that has listened to the experts and is acting accordingly.

On emissions targets there was a very sharp choice between a Liberal Party with no targets for reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and a Rudd Labor government which is now committed to reducing Australia’s emissions by 60 per cent of 2000 levels by 2050. On emissions trading, the Liberal Party’s pre-dawn conversion to a scheme the previous Prime Minister had spent years blocking then grudgingly moved to accepting a start date of 2012, while the Rudd Labor government—(Time expired)

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