Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People in my community and across this country were thrown into absolute despair last week when we saw Australia become even more isolated on the national stage because of the Morrison government's attitude towards climate change and their refusal to act. During his performance at the G7 summit, the Prime Minister refused yet again to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, even though his good friend Boris Johnson, the conservative Prime Minister of England, can do it. He kind of thought Morrison had done it, but he then had to be corrected. Scott Morrison wants to use taxpayers' money to commit to a feasibility study for a new coalmine when the leading economies of the world are saying, 'Get the government out of coal.'

So, not only were all Australians who care about the future, who care about emissions and the environment, and who care about jobs thrown into despair by that, they then had to watch the National Party's reaction today, which was to re-Joyce: we're going back to the future; we're going back to a man who doesn't believe in climate change, who said at Christmas last year that he wants the government out of his life—not when he's the Deputy Prime Minister it would seem—and is going to push this government to do even less for the future. It's wrong.