Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

This is the problem of writing a supplementary question before question time and not listening to the answer. I have indicated that the Treasury modelling was released last year. The International Energy Agency estimates that the amount of investment that will be required globally by mid-century to achieve the sorts of emissions reductions the world wants and needs is US$43 trillion to US$45 trillion. What Senator Abetz is effectively putting in his question—what underlies it—is the position that says Australia should not be part of that, Australia should not do what we need to do now to position ourselves to take those opportunities. And the reason Senator Abetz wants to take that position is that he does not want to act on climate change because, as we know, he thinks weeds are a greater threat than climate change.