House debates

Monday, 2 December 2019

Statements by Members

Climate Change

1:57 pm

Photo of Anthony AlbaneseAnthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It is indeed 10 years since the coalition and the Greens political party combined in the Senate to oppose the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We need to look back and analyse what a lost opportunity that was. It was economy-wide: it applied to transport, it applied to fugitive emissions and it applied to energy. It would have driven change through the economy. A couple of Libs crossed the floor in the Senate. All that it required was for the five Greens senators to get up off their seats and to walk and vote in favour of action on climate change. As those great philosophers Jagger and Richards once said:

You can't always get what you want

But … You get what you need

What we needed was economy-wide action on climate change. As a result, 218 million additional tonnes of carbon have been put into the atmosphere. It has been a decade, after which we have today no energy policy, no emissions policy. We have an emissions reduction minister when emissions are rising. The fact is that action on climate change, done properly through the economy, will create jobs and will lead to lower emissions and lower prices. That's why we need, going forward, to ensure that it occurs. (Time expired)

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