Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll start off by thanking the member for Brisbane and the member for Fremantle. Their contributions in this space have been extraordinary and show the people of Australia that both sides can work together on this. The member for Fremantle's speech was, as usual, eloquent and spoke to many of the fundamental problems and challenges we face in this space. There are, however, three points I would like to dispute with him. The first is his point that things are getting worse. There are any number of reports showing that, while things are not as we would wish them to be, our society, this nation, has made immense progress in this area and many other areas. Indeed, a book called Factfulness by Hans Rosling points to all the contributions and advances of humanity, both here and around the world, in making this planet a better place. It points out that our lives today are fundamentally better than they were even 20 years ago. So, while there is much to be done, much has been achieved. I think this should give anyone listening to this debate great hope that we can continue to do a lot more.

The second point I disagree with is that this government does not take climate change seriously. I know it is a line that is in the talking points of those opposite and gets trotted out quite often. It is, simply put, completely and utterly untrue. All of us on this side of the House have children, and some of us have grandchildren. We want this planet to be just as good after we leave it as the way we found it, if not better. We want to make sure that those who come after us have greater opportunity, not less opportunity. We understand fundamentally that one of the key drivers of the challenges we'll face in the years and decades ahead is climate change. How this nation, indeed how this planet, responds to that challenge will be key to what sort of planet we leave behind to those who come after us. It is both fundamentally error ridden and incorrect for anyone in this House to stand up and suggest that there is anyone here who does not take it seriously. I think it demeans the nature of the debate and makes this issue political rather than scientific. That's the thing that we should focus on, and I know the member for Fremantle fundamentally agrees with me on that.

The other thing about which we do have a fundamental disagreement is the national container deposit schemes. The member for Fremantle has a preference for a national scheme; I actually think having the state schemes and allowing the states to experiment with different schemes is the way to move forward, because it is through that policy experimentation that we may actually uncover a far better scheme than could be developed by those of us in this chamber. I know that only the best and the brightest are allowed to enter this chamber, but it is possible that there are others in other parts of the country—

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