Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to continue. Excuse me: in the heat of the argument I slipped forward one seat, which was not my intention. Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. The reality is that from the health minister the Australian people were, in an election campaign, given a guarantee that was described by Mr Abbott as rock-solid and ironclad. After the election, the government reneged on that promise and Mr Abbott justified it.

We have experienced since the last election a government put into power without a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since the Second World War. In those circumstances, the government called together all parties to sit and discuss the question of climate change, because there is no doubt that this is a very important issue. Many decided to attend. What did the opposition do? They said, ‘No, won’t; we’ll boycott it.’ To have participated and to have been constructive would have undermined the very philosophy that these two parties under Mr Abbott have followed: to oppose everything. You cannot oppose everything if you want to participate in a constructive discussion. From that point on, we knew that whatever came out of that discussion would be opposed by the opposition.

Frankly, the Prime Minister has been trying to put in place arrangements—arrangements that business have been urging upon the government—to assist this country to do what it needs to do to handle the economic imperatives and international pressures that will inevitably come upon our community because of the issue of climate change. With China and the US and a number of other countries taking their steps towards handling this issue, it is incumbent upon this nation to do something.

Going through that process of consulting with the parties who form the majority in the parliament was all that any government could do, and that is what the Prime Minister has done. She has taken to the Australian people a proposition that will be tested through the parliament. It will be the subject of further discussions. Ultimately, it will come back to this chamber and will be voted for or not. That was the appropriate thing for the Prime Minister to do. Playing games about semantics, which is what this opposition seems to be good at, is nothing to do with the good of this nation. At the end of the day, we are going to have to take this argument forward. This opposition will not do that, because all they want to do is oppose, oppose, oppose.