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

Thank you, Mr President. It falls to Senator Brown to ask me a question about the opposition’s policy, which is nothing more than a climate con job. That is all they come up with, with all the chest-beating and all the hoopla and all the threats and all the politics. All you have come up with is a climate con job. I am sure that we will have plenty of opportunity in the coming days to just find out exactly how much your policy will cost and that it will not work.

In response directly to the second part of Senator Brown’s question, I am aware of the decision of the Land and Environment Court. Obviously that is a New South Wales jurisdiction, but the senator would be aware that the Australian government is extremely concerned to ensure that we assist local government to gain an understanding of the risks of climate change. We released last year, as you may recall, a study into potential sea level rises as a result of climate change to enable different levels of government to better work together on a better knowledge base to plan for the future. The reality is that those opposite are now led by a man who thinks—and we know what he thinks of climate change—and I will come back to that later— (Time expired)