David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We all know what happened next. Senator Minchin and Senator Abetz, with Senator Bernardi cheering them on, led a revolt of the science deniers against their own leader, Mr Turnbull. After inflicting mayhem upon their own party and in this place, they replaced him with Tony Abbott, a man who thinks that climate science is ‘crap’. Mr Abbott then reneged on the agreement which had been reached between the government and the opposition, and the CPRS legislation was defeated. The upshot was that the opposition, having wasted their own four terms in government by doing absolutely nothing about climate change, succeeded in also wasting the first term of this government in not delivering action on climate change. They did that through their politically motivated obstructionism in this Senate.

Senator Abetz in his earlier remarks tried to cite the passage of the CPRS as an example of the Senate process working. He could not be more wrong. Every time those bills were sent off to committee it was not so that those opposite could indulge in another round of scrutiny and consideration but rather to spare them from dealing with those political questions themselves.