House debates Questions without Notice

Climate Change

Tuesday, 6 February 2007 House of Representatives

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition

3:07 pm

My question again is to the Prime Minister, and I refer to his answer to my previous question. I refer to this transcript of an interview between the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Turnbull, on the ABC AM program of Saturday, 3 February, where the environment minister says:

But you’re talking about something less than a metre over 100 years. So this is not a sort of, you know, an Al Gore-type apocalypse that we’re talking about.

He goes on:

There’s a lot of very exaggerated claims and you have to bear in mind that most of our coastal population lives on the east coast of Australia and because of the geology or the [topography] of the east coast, you know, much of that is adequately elevated to deal with a one-metre sea rise.

Prime Minister, do you support this statement?

John Howard

John Howard Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister

I will tell you what I do support: doing my own research.

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table this transcript for the Prime Minister’s assistance.

Leave granted.