Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, all the lunatics together. So that is the issue. The issue is: are politicians going to take climate change seriously, are governments going to take climate change seriously and are we going to make sure that our children have an opportunity in the future to enjoy an environment that is sustainable? That is the issue. If anyone from the opposition wants to have a look at the paper from the working group commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences I would be happy to send them a copy.

The next one I want to quote is again from somewhere I do not like quoting from. I do not normally quote from there because most of the quotes are taken up by the coalition anyway. The coalition are in there quick smart. Whenever the Australian pontificates about something, the coalition are in there and quoting the Australian. But I think I would even have to concede that Paul Kelly, the editor at large, has some standing in political analysis within Australia. I must say that I think Paul Kelly's standing has been improved by this article that I am about to quote from. In the Australian of 22 June 2011, under the heading 'Abbott's plebiscite call a serious misjudgment'—not just a mis­judgment but a 'serious' misjudgment—Paul Kelly says:

An instinctive resort to populist tactics is contrary to all the party stands for.

I do not think the coalition stand for much these days. I think they are totally populist. So I think Mr Kelly has it a bit wrong there. They are totally a populist party, captured by the extremists on industrial relations, the extremists on climate change, those that would be extreme on the issue of race and those that would be extreme on the issue of making this country a good country to live in. So what does Paul Kelly say? He says:

THERE is no established practice in Australian national politics for plebiscites to determine policy issues for the obvious reason they are a bad idea.

Did you get that? Paul Kelly from the Australian says it is a 'bad idea'. He goes on to say that that bad idea 'advances neither democracy, good government nor sound public policy.'

In my view, I do not think the coalition are much interested in democracy, good government or sound public policy, because the stunts are absolutely at the forefront of how this coalition are operating. Paul Kelly goes on to say:

The plebiscite on the carbon tax proposed by Tony Abbott is not smart politics.

Would you expect smart politics from Tony Abbott? You would not expect anything smart from him on economics, because we know that he is not interested in economics. We know that you would not get anything smart out of the Leader of the Opposition on that. Paul Kelly goes on to say:

It does not assist Abbott's cause or his standing. It suggests the Coalition needs stunts, not sound argument, to buttress its case.

I have got a difference with Mr Kelly on that point: it is not a suggestion that they are relying on stunts to buttress their case; the reality is that the coalition are totally depend­ent on stunts to buttress their case. They have got nothing else going for them. They have absolutely no policy direction on the key issues affecting this country. They are a policy void; a policy wasteland. All they have is stunts. Paul Kelly goes on to say:

It is a mistake for the Liberal Party to propose 'government by plebiscite'. This violates the practice and philosophy espoused by its former leader, John Howard.

Remember that guy—John Howard, your former leader? Paul Kelly says it 'violates the practice and philosophy' of your former leader. He goes on to say:

It defies the principles of representative democracy that have served Australia well. There is one certainty: the notion is inconsistent with the principles of conservatism that Abbott is supposed to uphold.

We know why that is. It is because the Leader of the Opposition has no principles.

How can you point to any principle when a leader says 'I am a weathervane and I'll just point to what's happening at the time and tell you what's happening at the time'? How many different positions has the Leader of the Opposition had on climate change? One minute it is real and the next minute it is not real. I suppose it depends on who he was talking to the night before when he makes the statements on climate change. He is totally inconsistent and all over the place on climate change. But what we do understand is that he does not believe it. He believes it is crap. That is what the Leader of the Opposition said: 'It's crap'.

Every scientific body that has any credibility believes global warming is real. Every scientist in the field with any standing, with peer reviewed work, says that it is real. The only people I hear in this place arguing that it is not real are the extremist climate change deniers on the other side, who do not care about future generations, who do not care about what happens in the future. They have short-termism driving their position.

It is absolutely essential to deal with climate change. It is absolutely essential to give our kids a fair go in the future. That is what the Labor Party is about. What has happened here is that the Australian , that organisation that is quoted endlessly—and, I must say, mindlessly almost all the time—by the coalition has belled the cat on this issue of a plebiscite. The Australian has said that it is just a nonsense. Paul Kelly goes on to say:

Plebiscites are the road to bad policy in the name of people power. Consider. Should we have had a referendum to launch the post-war immigration program, to abolish the White Australia Policy, to remove the tariff, to move away from centralised wage fixation, to deregulate interest rates, to introduce the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, to float the dollar, to embrace a native title system, to introduce a GST and to accept Indo-Chinese refugees in the 1980s? Each of these 10 policies has been instrumental in improving our society and economy. It is likely none of them would have passed a plebiscite at the time.

So what Paul Kelly is saying to the coalition is: 'Stand up. Stand up for your principles. Stand up for the values that you claim to have.' I say to Paul Kelly: how can you stand up for principles and values when you are devoid of principles and values, as the coalition are? Paul Kelly goes on to say—

The policy plebiscite—