Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The trouble with the Labor Party’s credibility on this issue is that they have parroted a very lazy greenhouse policy for the past 11 years that they have been in opposition. They have three-word policies and two-word policies, one of which is, ‘Sign Kyoto’. We happen to know that signing Kyoto will do absolutely nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia or globally. We also happen to know that most of the countries that have ratified Kyoto—you can count the exceptions on one hand—will go massively over their targets. Eighteen months ago, during an election campaign in Canada, Australia was being lectured by the former Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, because we and the United States had not ratified Kyoto. Paul Martin was kicked out, probably because most Canadians understood that, while he was lecturing his cousins in the United States and his friends in Australia on greenhouse gas emissions, Canada had gone 30 per cent over its Kyoto target, leaving the incoming government of Stephen Harper with a massive problem. Of course, Mr Martin’s credibility was nil. The Labor Party’s other policy is the three-word policy of a ‘national emissions trading scheme’.